Stargate: Commonality
by keiranhalcyon2010
Summary: Something has changed in our distant past. We are totally different. We have created a near Utopia. We have already begun the exploration of space. What we found in the final frontier was not what we hoped for. Our dreams of a peaceful Universe shattered.
1. Chapter 1

"We'd be colonizing space right now if it hadn't been for the Dark Ages. There was a period of over eight hundred years where science was heresy and anathema. Maybe they didn't have that set-back." – _Daniel Jackson on the reason for the Tollan's superior tech._

**What if the reverse was true? What if the Roman Empire had endured? What if the Renaissance in Scientific thought had occurred over a thousand years before it originally happened?**

**Chapter 1**

**Planet Abydos, 270 light years Coreward from Earth, 1935 AD**

The mammoth four hundred meter diameter pyramid stabbed out of the ever shifting desert sands that surrounded it. It was still in a near ideal condition, evidently not subject to the entropy of time; its surface was still polished, and its tip tapered to a razor sharp point. The long walkway leading up to the main entrance of the pyramid was similarly well preserved, and the two obelisks that stood guard on either side were practically untouched. Inside the pyramid itself was a large hall with pillars in a perfect alignment with the walls. Sconces that held burning chemical torches were mounted on the walls to provide illumination, but they were out, since no one was here, leaving everything in semi-darkness – the only light, coming from the large entrance.

The main feature of the room however, was the large obsidian metallic ring that everything else seemed to lead towards. The Ring had a maw of twenty two pes and was itself two pes thick; around the inner section were thirty nine divisions, each with a particular design on it to represent a specific stellar coordinate. On the outer ring were nine chevrons, with their points facing into the maw of the giant Ring. Steps led down from the maw onto the floor that was half buried in the inch thick desert sands that had penetrated into the chamber over the eons, despite its designers precautions to guard against that.

The first indication of activity was the slight rumbling that preceded the sudden sound of the nine chevrons abruptly flexing, shifting over the inner ring symbols briefly before retreating to their earlier positions, only now all nine were lit with an amber glow. In the next ten seconds, six of the chevrons lit up even brighter in sequence, until finally the upper chevron on the large Ring flexed. It lit up like the others, except suddenly in the maw with a crying screeching sound, a vortex of unstable plasma exploded into being, the artificial plasma eerily looked like water.

The vortex was seemingly sucked back into the maw to settle into a stable rippling 'pool' effect of translucent water like plasma. The sound now permeating the place was eerily like a loud trickling pond. There was a slight rippling sound and something emerged from the pool.

It was vaguely spherical, about a gradus in diameter and seemed made out of a room temperature liquid alloy that swirled and shifted in a wide variety of patterns. Around it like a second skin was a holographic projection showing ever shifting myriads of graphical sprites and patterns based on some very intricate mathematics. It wasn't a probe, in fact, had you called it that, it would not have been rather disgruntled. It was in fact a fully sentient being, 'his' original biological body having been lost in an accident, thankfully there had been enough time for his consciousness to be downloaded before death could claim him.

The synthetic being hovered forward into the room, his sensors or 'eyes' probing everything in the room; temperature, pressure, radiation, atmosphere, the structural integrity of the…pyramid and sending it all via subquantum data link back through the wormhole connected to the _Stargate_. Everything seemed safe.

"Microdrone survery confirmed. You may proceed," the synthetic being sent back in the link, his holographs flaring in a manner to those capable of understanding, that he was amazed and pleased at the same time.

With more slurps six figures stepped through the Stargate. Three seemingly ordinary men and three ordinary women who were wide eyed with astonishment and staring initially at the thin layer of frost that had formed on their bodies, which was already melting away in the hot dry heat.

"You can relax, it's merely a side effect of your molecules undergoing compression in the wormhole, I can find no error in your rematerilization," said the synthetic being (SB).

"Thanks for that Matty," said the tallest of the women in relief.

"You're welcome, Jana," the SB bobbed up and down in his version of a nod, and his holofields changed to show 'satisfaction'.

The exploration team sent by the Terran Commonality busied themselves first with wiping off the water and remaining frost from their bodies. It didn't really inconvenience them despite appearances – to the untrained eye, they were six humans wearing naught but their skin and bracelets around their arms and various rings around their fingers. In actual fact, to the Commonality's sensibilities, the exploration team was armed to the teeth.

Matty looked slightly wistfully at the team he was assigned to, he missed his organic body. Looking at Jana Freeman and other two women; Emily Adaway and Anona Sheffield, he was reminded of all that he had lost thanks to that bloody stupid shuttle crash. Sure he could be downloaded into a biorobot that looked human, had a heartbeat, blood, the whole works, but its nature was just as artificial as his current 'drone' form. He would never properly feel female curves like that under his _hands_ again.

Jana, the team leader had by far the best proportions, full breasts, rosy nipples, a toned body conditioned to the peak of fitness via traditional and artificial means, smooth pale skin and shortened blonde hair. The other two were just as attractive, Anona with flaring red hair, smaller breasts, and seemingly preferred to keep a tiny whiff of hair between her legs, whilst Emily was a brunette and seemed even stronger than Jana.

The men, well, here Matty had to override his holofields to prevent himself from showing envy. Dante Belser, Julius Michlin and Horace Aurelius all stood well over six feet, with varied builds seemingly molded straight from the Discobolus statue of ancient Greece. They were the picture of athleticism. Not to mention their _other characteristics_, this surely kept their current partners _very_ happy.

He shrugged off the line of thought and made sure that the signal through the wormhole was constant. It was currently providing quite handy illumination, until the team could get their bearings from that rather amazing ride through the deep kappa band of subspace.

"Matty, release the link," Jana ordered eventually after thoroughly checking themselves and their internals thoroughly.

"Very well."

The Stargate abruptly shut itself down with a swooshing noise that heralded the abrupt darkness that the room was plunged in. Not that it mattered to the team, as their augmented vision saw well beyond the boundaries of the old 'visible' spectrum.

"Hmm, we're still linked to the Commonality at least," Matty commented, checking his interal subquanta com system. The other members of the ES (Exploration and Survey) Team did the same check, but with their own com neurodes embedded in their spines.

"Confirmed," echoed Julius, rubbing the water out of his short black hair. "It seems we're over a hundred and fifty light years north beyond the Commonality's coreward border. Talk about walking into the unknown."

Jana nodded a grin of excitement on her face; this is what she lived for after all. She gave mental instruction to her Dimensional Storage (DS) bracelet and there was a sudden white flash of materialization around her left arm, which now sported a dark grey metallic gauntlet, she fiddled with a few settings – her mind giving direct instructions to the device and abruptly a flat hologram appeared above the gauntlet – giving a topographical scan of the area.

"Desert, desert, and yet more desert," said Emily, as the team stared at the results.

"That's going to make for a fun hike." Dante shook his head wryly.

"What do you make of this pyramid, Matty?" Jana looked around her eyes penetrating into the darkness of the room.

"Its design is similar to the Giza Pyramids," Matty reported, consulting his scans. "It is reinforced with trinium, and there are concentrations of Stargate Element 130 dotted about the place. Especially from that circular hole set in the roof above us. It has internal mechanisms similar to the Stargate, clearly meant for localized Matter Energy Displacement, but needs a receiver device…unlike our own Displacement technology."

"I've found the Stargate CHD," called Horace Aurelius, standing off to the side behind one of the many pillars in the arrival room. Jana headed over to her second in command, and gave a look at the mushroom shaped hip-height pedestal with a circular arrangement of the Stargate coordinate glyphs carved perfectly into the buttons. The large orange 'button' in the centre currently had a slight glow to it, indicating it had power.

"Identical to the one we found back home," mused Jana. Her scanner gauntlet mentally prodded her for attention and she glanced at the readings. "Exterior scans confirm – we can proceed outside. Matty, Emily, Horace, you're with me, the rest of you begin a survey of this pyramid."

The team nodded and they split up to begin their work.

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Jana emerged from the pyramid onto the long walkway extending outward from it, and had to blink a few times and mentally order her second set of transparent eyelids to close to form a UV shield over her eyes and her skin altered on a molecular level to protect her from the harsh desert sun beating down on them. They continued undaunted and when they came to the end of the walkway turned to stare at the magnificent sight.

The three moons in the backdrop of the pyramid in the pure blue sky would almost certainly become a picture everyone in ES would want on their personal Padd's background. They turned back towards the endless sand dunes of the planet the cartouches found with the Stargate identified as 'Abydos'. Jana shook her left arm and the scanner gauntlet vanished back into the DS bracelet. "Matty, I want a life sign scan – maximum possible range." She asked the SB, because his sensor suite was infinitely more varied, powerful and had longer range than the gauntlet.

The SB nodded and his holoskin showed him in deep thought as his scans swept a hundred kilometers in every direction. "I'm detecting eight thousand two hundred life signs, in two distinct groupings. Seven thousand eight hundred in what must be a city, approximately twelve leuga away relative south-west. Four hundred life signs clustered eight leuga relative south east."

"Are these life signs human?"

"They fall within norms for a pre-Renewal human," Matty replied with an astonished tone.

"Well, that at least confirms the cartouche's translation as being accurate," Emily scowled at the thought.

"We'll head for the smaller grouping of people," Jana ordered and the quintet of explorers finally stepped onto the soft sands on yet another new world to explore.

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Anona, Julius and Dante had each materialized structural survey scanners, meant to precisely catalogue the dimensions of any alien building they happened upon, which had been quite frequent. She had lost count of the amount of deserted and dilapidated architecture she had seen. Commonality space was littered with the ruins of dead civilizations. Ever since Terra had mastered Faster than Light over nine hundred years ago and began the exploration of the local region, no space faring race had been found; only the Stage 1 Agrarian Xyrillians and roughly twelve other alien races, barely out of a tribal stage could be found in Commonality Space – and those worlds were considered absolutely no go, except for trained Infiltrators of the ES Agency.

Any civilization that had been found coming close to Industrial stages and even Space faring, had simply been wiped out. Those worlds had caused no small amount of apprehension for the Commonality; as evidence of massive orbital bombardment and other depredations was brought to light by the EXS. What was responsible was still something of a mystery, but some recovered records of the very civilizations facing extinction had only identified the shape of the alien ships responsible in grainy photographs.

It was what prompted a vote to be tabled in front of the entire Terran Commonality; for the sweeping reorganization and arming of the ES and their ships; in addition to pulling out the mothballed behemoth warships from the various Shipyards in Commonality space and to update them to current technological standards. When First Contact was made with the 'Worldenders', the Commonality did not want to be caught off guard.

Already the Pyramid they were surveying was beginning to steadily intrigue the team. Its basic construction seemed much more technically advanced than the ones on Giza. It was almost like it was pre-assembled into a more compact form, and then simply placed on the surface of the desert and unfolded itself. Also was the addition of a labyrinth of passages underneath the pyramid, not unlike a maze.

It would be interesting to attempt a navigation of it, the old fashioned way. But Anona resisted the impulse and remained with her colleagues and continued a methodical survey of all the side passages off the arrival room.

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Jana cautiously poked her head over the dune that separated them from their destination to get a good look. What she saw shocked her greatly. It was a scene out of ancient times when all was done by hand, tools, and back breaking labor. Stretching out ahead of them was a large mining operation dug into the side of a huge outcropping. Primitive wooden and rope walkways were anchored along the side of the rockface as people carrying raw stone in slings on their backs moved along it to ground level. They were eventually bringing it to an area just about fifty passus away from her team, which had rough stone plinths jutting out of the ground and a tarp provided shade for the workers who seemed to be processing the raw stone by hand – most of whom were female and younger men still not fit enough for the heavy work in the mines.

The workers themselves were clearly of Middle Eastern or North African Earth descent, their swarthy skin and builds catered to harsh temperatures and nomadic lifestyle. They wore leathers mostly and woven materials of light colors as was typical of a scarcity based society that still had shame of body and no technology and the mental ability to bioform beyond worrying about the elements of nature.

"Matty, cloak yourself, I'd rather not startle the locals too much when we make an appearance," Jana ordered. This was going to be a tricky situation. In any other situation the Commonality would've been all too happy to send in Infiltrators and only conduct observation of the locals – but the fact that they were _human_, on a planet way beyond where any human should've been complicated things.

"Very well," the SB said in annoyance and his holofields vanished and abruptly his casing became photo-adaptive and using a modulated chroniton field, essentially made him invisible to both organic and mechanical eyes.

"So what do you make of this?" Jana asked her team.

"They must have been taken or gone through the Stargate at some point in the past, before it was buried," Horace shook his head, looking grim.

"Thousands of years on another planet, the gravity here is slightly higher, not to mention different ambient radiation, to study the genetic drift over such a period of time should be very interesting," Emily, ever the medical specialist, opinioned.

"Making First Contact will be delicate; everything we know of it is pure theory. Thankfully, they're human so we at least have body language going for us," was the invisible Matty's comment

"All right, we'll enter visual and make no move towards them, let their own curiosity bring them forward," Jana met the eyes of each her team, earning ready-to-go nods from each of them. She straightened and began the last few steps which would take them over the dune. The team walked forward and came to a halt barely fifteen passus from the closest workers bringing minerals to the shade covered area and stood with arms and hands at their sides and plainly visible.

It didn't take long.

One of the younger workers after having delivered a load of ore, caught them out of the corner of his eye, stopped, and faced them. The expression on his face was rather laughable; his eyes wide and mouth gaping for a few brief moments, clearly not knowing what to make of the sight. Finally, intelligence seemed to return to his features and he declared in his native tongue: 'Chien pe-ow. Mieu."

"Matty?" Jana prompted.

"Attempting to translate, but I'll need more…their language will have evolved from the classic Ancient Egyptian." The invisible SB replied.

Another young worker, this one distinct because of his dreadlocked dark hair, also spotted them. "Chien pe-ow. Mieu. Mieu. Mieu, shien mow." The call had caught almost everyone's attention to them now and soon a small crowd had gathered to stare in awe, astonishment, incomprehension at the clothless strangers. There was even a few nervous titters, but that soon settled down as a slight staring match began.

Jana decided to begin with a greeting in the oldest known dialect of Egyptian, that Earth still remembered. The entire team had downloaded the knowledge a week before embarking through the Stargate.

"_**Hello, we are travelers, my name is Jana**_," she spoke fluently. The small crowd began muttering amongst themselves, but it was clear that they didn't understand, though some of them did seem to sense that their language was similar. "Are you getting it, Matty?" she asked in an undertone. The hidden SB's audio sensors could pick up the sound of an ant rubbing its feelers against each other, if he was so inclined.

"Yes, language programs are working on it, start with this…" Jana felt the information flow into her mind over the Team Link.

"_**Hello, we are…travelers, my…name is Jana**__,_" she said, the knowledge came in stuttering bursts, since it was so freshly downloaded.

"_**You – nudah – people – not met past**_," said the dread-locked haired worker, uncertainly.

'Keep going,' Matty encouraged.

"_**We come from far…away, far beyond you have ever traveled…"**_ Jana explained. _**"We are the…descendants…of your ancestors on the world…from which we all came.**_"

One of the other workers hearing that suddenly declared to the crowd, _**"Chappa-ai. They come from the Chappa-ai. They are…(garble) from the (garble)!"**_ That worker suddenly bowed to them, and suddenly everyone genuflected.

"Merda," cursed Jana, scowling in frustration. "What were those last words?"

'I don't have enough of a lexicon yet, but it seems clear they believe we are either royalty, or a physical representation or representatives of a deity." Matty observed.

"Ra, the ancient Egyptian Sun god was mentioned on the cartouche," Horace pointed out. "

Jana cursed again and stepped forward to the worker. "_**What is your name?"**_

The worker kept his head bowed and said, "_**Na'Ara.**_"

"_**Then, Na'Ara, do not…bow…before us**_," she said strongly. "_**Stand.**_"

Na'Ara hesitantly did so but kept his head bowed and did not look Jana in the eye. The others remained kneeling. "_**We are here to learn about you, do you have an…Elder, a leader**_?" The young man nodded. "_**The we must speak with him."**_

He nodded and bolted away. Horace walked over to a stone bowl of sorts that contained a large portion of obsidian ore, a scanner gauntlet appeared on his arm as he took readings. "They're mining element 130."

"Why? They couldn't possibly be using it for anything; it would require a Stage 3 or higher level civilization to even begin understanding how to utilize it." Emily looked at the people, a concerned expression on her face.

Na'Ara returned before they could further speculate and he was accompanied by several others including a large beast of burden that was similar to a Terran elephant, but had no trunk and a strange rounded head and a hairy body. It was clearly domesticated, with a harness and even a rickshaw tent on the tall beast's back. "_**Come see**_." The young worker repeated to the one in the tent when the beast had halted. The curtains were parted and a robed elderly man emerged.

The man had a paler look to his skin than the others, and seemed in his late forties, according to ancient human standards; with rapidly balding grey hair that only grew around the sides of his hair and were cut short. He peered with the eyes of wisdom at the ES team after he slid off the beast carrying him and came to stop a mere two gradus away from Jana. In his right hand he held an ornately carved wooden staff and after speaking to Na'Ara in a low voice…turned to the team and held his staff horizontally and bowed his head slightly…_A clear gesture of peace if I ever saw one_, Jana thought.

"_**Please tell your people to rise Elder, there is no need for this,**_" Jana gestured to the prostrated crowd.

"_**I am Elder Kaelu, I speak on behalf of my people to the gods."**_ The old man lowered his staff back to his side. _**"It's unusual for gods to ask us not to prostrate before them."**_

"_**Let us make one thing clear Elder**_," Jana spoke flatly. _**"My companions and I are powerful and would have what you may consider magic, but we are not gods."**_

"_**You walk without coverings or even shoes in the blistering heat of the desert, and are not parched or burned by the sun. You have perfect appearance. You came through the Chappa'ai, and only gods can do that."**_

Jana sighed trying to think of a way to impress on Kaelu the truth, but resolved to think on it later when she had a better idea of the overall situation. Truth of the matter she had no ready way to do that. If she cut herself, it would heal in moments…if she let Kaelu or one of the workers hit or punch her, that wouldn't work either…and the bruise would vanish in seconds too. It would only further convince the Elder. _**"Your people may go back to work."**_

Kaelu rapid barked out commands to his people faster than Jana was able to follow. They immediately got up and started to the toil of work again. The Elder next called out another order.

"You tried your best, Jana," Horace lamented.

"Not good enough apparently, we are just too far ahead of them to find any common ground, ES Command is going to skin me alive," Jana said darkly.

Kaelu's last order became apparent when four women came forward, bearing bowls, and offered them to the team to drink. Jana smiled and accepted it. "Matty?"

'_Scanned it, it's safe to drink, just water_,' replied the SB into their minds.

"To a desert culture, we have just been given something very precious," Jana remarked to her team. "Drink only one mouthful, give the bowls back and bow in thanks."

The team did as she ordered.

Jana winced as she knew what had to happen next, and the only way to achieve it would only further solidify them as gods in the minds of the Abydonians. She held out her hand, sending a mental command to her DS bracelet and with a small flash of white light, a purified water bottle appeared. Kaelu and his entourage gasped. She undid the seal and offered it to him.

The Elder hesitantly took it and Jana said, "_**It is water, in thanks for that which you have offered us**_."

Kaelu looked into the transparent composite bottle and hesitantly raised it to his mouth and drank. After a long pregnant moment of silence, a delighted smile broke across his face.

"_**Amazing, I have never tasted water so clear**_!"

"_**You may keep it. We would like to hear of you and your people in your own words."**_

"Of course, come, come," Kaelu gestured for them to follow.

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The survey of the pyramid continued and they found their way down to the underground maze, at one point they had to use a particle beam drill to get in as it seemed something had subjected the pyramid to periodic seismic stresses. That confirmed what their structural survey had found so far. Every year, something massive impacted the pyramid, and this was the strangest thing…the micro stress fractures in the structure were everywhere…as if whatever it was, hit it perfectly on all sides, all at once.

"There's no way that's natural," Dante said as the beam drill compacted itself into its storage form, it was barely the height of their knees now, and less the half a passus in width. It vanished into the Engineer's DS bracelet.

They proceeded into the maze. Anona used their scans to project a hologram above her palm, by which they navigated to the largest chamber. It surprised her that there were no traps in it, but clearly the builder only wanted to get anyone hopelessly lost in the labyrinth, and it was impressively constructed to do just that. No unique passageways, no marks or distinguishing signs…of course, it had the one weakness all mazes had, it's walls eventually led to its destination…it would take a long time to get to the centre, but it was easily done.

The central chamber was large, rectangular and positively festooned with remarkably intact hieroglyphs that would have Terran historians practically picketing the Agency, to demand a trip through the Stargate to examine it in person. The three Terrans spread out again and began their scans.

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Jana and her team accompanied Kaelu in the long caravan of people and _**Mastadges**_ 'the Abydonian beasts of burden'. They were clearly heading to the expansive mass of lifesigns that Matty had detected. A hundred people had remained behind to continue the mining. The arrival of the ES team had thrown the Abydonian 'schedule' off, apparently, but since they were 'gods' it was deemed okay.

In her conversation with the Elder, Jana tried as much damage control as she could, but it wasn't very successful. She also learned that the Abydonians mined the '_**Naquadah**_' - the name of the Stargate element in their language - for their 'god', and brought it as a tribute, because 'Ra' arrived in a chariot of the heavens every year.

"_**When is…Ra, due Elder?"**_ Jana asked as the caravan snaked up another large dune.

"_**We expect his chariot to appear very soon."**_

'_Anona, you're going to have a visitor apparently,' _she broadcast mentally over the team link.

'_Really?_ T_ell me the details_.' The team in the underground maze's thoughts was coming in clear through supraspace.

Jana filled her in as they struggled to crest the dune. When they were finally there they lay their eyes for the first time on the Abydonian city of _**Nagada**_. It was an expansive stone city, which looked like it had been taken straight from ancient Egypt and built on a flat stone plateau.

"Okay, if there was ever any doubt, this just dispelled it," Horace shook his head. "They were definitely taken from Earth."

They eventually entered the large wooden doors of the city, the people eagerly appearing the in the streets and watching through windows as the caravan returned. Word also quickly spread of the 'gods' that had come through the _**Chappa'ai**_ and whom were accompanying the caravan. In the main street, Kaelu gestured and shouted an order. People pulled on ropes that led up to a tarp covering something the span the street…when it fell away it revealed a symbol that had the ES team reeling in shock at the familiarity of it. It was a bronze disk with the Eye of Ra, molded in relief on it.

Kaelu prostrated himself before it and everyone followed his example, Jana and her team just stood and stared.

'_The Eye of Ra, I do not like where this is going_,' Matty grumbled darkly to his flesh and blood teammates.

"Neither do I," Emily frowned as the Abydonians raised themselves and got back to their daily work and unloading the caravan. There was a sudden horn call in the distance, and people started to move about even more hurriedly.

'_Matty, full scan for whatever has them agitated_,' Jana ordered.

'_Scanning…there is an unusual weather system that has suddenly appeared. It has thrown up a sandstorm that has already engulfed the pyramid and is rapidly closing the distance to the city._'

'_Define unusual.'_

'_Wait one…oh, it's due to the localized atmospheric disturbance of a six hundred passus diameter space craft beginning its descent. The displacement and ionization caused a minor low pressure system to form under it. Its propulsion emissions are adding to the intensity_.'

'_What is its arrival time?'_

'_Estimate ten minutes, but its pace seems leisurely…I don't think whoever this is, is in any hurry.'_ The team turned around to face the now closed main doors of the city and sun was suddenly blotted out as the sandstorm was deflected over the city by its walls. Gravity however, caused some of the sand to fall into the city and the Abydonians took cover in their homes and the roar of the storm drowned out voices.

Kaelu gestured for them to follow him.

'_Relay that data to Anona, she is to attempt peaceful contact with 'Ra' if it is him.'_ As they entered what seemed to be Kaelu's house. It was characteristic of such a less advanced environment. Pots, bowls, tapestries, and curtains, were well arranged around the main room on the lower floor.

'_I rather doubt that contact will be peaceful_.' Matty said dryly.

'_Why?'_

Matty didn't answer and only sent a data stream from his sensors directly into the team link, which via retinal imaging, directly appeared as an overlay in their vision. When they saw it…Jana, Horace and Emily stiffened before they could sit down at Kaelu's invitation on a beautifully crafted rug.

The three looked at each other incredulously. A day had arrived that the Agency and the Commonality had been dreading.

Jana sighed, shook her head and said the word that all of them were thinking.

"Worldenders."

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_A/N: This AU popped into my head recently and just didn't want to let me go. Commonality units of measurement are based on old Roman units. (1 digitus – 1.8cm ; 1 pes – 29cm ; 1 gradus – 0.74m ; 1 passus – 1.48m ; 1 stadium – 185m ; 1 millarium – 1.48 km ; 1 leuga – 2.2km) The History of the Commonality will be unveiled as I go along with the story. _Speech in'abcdef' is a modern Terran Latin. _'abcdef'_ is mental link communication. '_**abcdef**_' is Goa'uld or Modern Egyptian.


	2. Chapter 2 Ra

**Chapter 2 - Ra**

Anona looked at her two male colleagues and with nearly perfect choreography they dematerialized their scanners. A thought towards their DS bracelets had gauntlets appearing on both arms that were geared towards one specific purpose. These were much more rugged in construction than those used for scientific endeavours, and the neutronium carbon alloy it was made of gave it a muted silver grey colour.

'_Let's go,'_ Anona turned and with Julius and Dante right behind her they set off at a sprint. Any Abydonian watching them would've been shocked at their turn of speed. With the most efficient route into the maze already known, their sprint towards the exit took less than half the time it had taken them to get to the central chamber. Occasionally they would even run against a wall when the turn didn't allow for enough time to slow down, pushing off with their feet to redirect their momentum instead of losing it.

They arrived in the Stargate room of the pyramid, breathing only slightly faster than normal and began to discuss their tactics. They had made good time, and the data feed from Matty showed that the Worldender ship was seemingly still busy with its leisurely descent.

"What do you think?" Anona invited suggestions.

Whilst all of the ES team could fight competently in various forms of armed and unarmed martial arts that were part of the collective knowledge of all the Commonality, very few in ES chose to specialize in it. Those who did were usually part of the Legion…the only vestige of a military force that the Commonality had held onto and maintained. Before the Rearmament vote had been tabled, there were barely three thousand Terran Legionnaires in all of known space and they were mostly doing it for fun and because their aptitudes had been determined as being in those areas.

After the vote, it was a different story, within fifty years sixty fully trained Terran Fleets were patrolling the borders and numerous Terrans had on their own initiative began to reacquaint themselves with skills not used since the Unification of the Three Star Empires during the Great War into what was the now the Commonality. The ES Agency had also initiated a cross training program, whilst anyone wishing to enlist in the Agency did the traditional courses of navigation, science, archaeology, exo-biology and so forth, mandatory basic Legionnaire training was also instituted.

Julius and Dante had been Legionnaires from the 7th Elite Division of the Ninth Fleet; both men also had Engineering specialities as well.

"Stealth and strike?" Dante suggested.

"Good idea, we'd just have to find good ambush spots and be careful about movement, the sand on the floor will betray our position."

"Then let's get to it."

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All three Terrans sat in full lotus positions on the tarp covered roof of Kaelu's house. Night had fallen and the storm had somewhat abated to allow the residents of Nagada City outside. Their presence on the roof was explained by the fact that the Abydonians had decided to hold a feast in their honour. The roof had been covered with rugs, and the air was filled with Abydonian traditional music (which Matty was faithfully recording for the anthropologists in the Agency; as it was entirely possible that the sounds hadn't been heard on Earth for thousands of years, not since the Egyptian Dynasties were still around). The ES team had seats of honour with Kaelu's family and other elders. In the street below and on other rooftops similar scenes of revelry was taking place.

Jana bit into a piece of flat bread she had taken from the various large dishes on offer as appetizers.

"_**Good**_," she smiled, after finishing chewing. Inwardly though, she was quite anxious. '_That _futuo_ worldender ship is seemingly going for a leisure cruise around the planet. I'm all for patience but in this case it's killing me.'_

'_Julius and Dante know what they're doing Jana, relax,' _advised Matty. Jana cast an angry eye to the tarp a passus above their heads, beyond which she knew he was hovering invisibly.

'_Don't tell me to relax; we're about to probably engage in the first true interspecies conflict in Terran history. Excuse me if I'm not exactly thrilled that it's _my_ team who fires the first shots.'_

A new platter was set down in front of the team, effectively distracting Jana from her dark thoughts. This was due to the…dead corpse of an animal on it. She berated herself for not recalling this little detail of lower stage civilizations, not to mention desert based ones, and fought the urge to be sick. _How Infiltrators get used to it I can only imagine_. The last corpse-food consumed by a Terran had been just before 800 AD with the perfection of synthetics. It was not only that which caused the end of animal food consumption, simple economics did the trick as well. Raising an animal to slaughter for food was horrendously inefficient, since the amount of land it took to feed one cow could feed ten humans if plants were grown on it – with the advent of Hydroponics - that increased to a hundred people.

'_Ugh, if I don't eat this they'll consider it an insult_,' she thought to her team mates, and steeling herself reached out to the cooked corpse of an animal that almost looked like a Terran armadillo. '_Matty, at least tell me I can metabolize this_.'

_Sure, just think of it as sticky protein and fat_,' he cheerfully advised.

She picked out a thin piece of the meat, and raised it to her mouth, giving pointed glances to Emily and Horace. Her fellow Terrans took deep breaths and also took some 'meat'. Jana felt the squishy, yet leathery substance enter her mouth and again had to stop herself from spitting it out on instinct and swallowed…forcefully ordering her autonomic nervous system to stop the 'vomit' command it was about to transmit.

Kaelu was watching them anxiously for a response to the food. No doubt hoping that it would meet with their approval.

"_**It is delicious, Elder,**_" Jana said, using all of her one hundred and ninety T-years of experience in the lie. Kaelu smiled and seemed to have been convinced as he laughed in relief. _**"Tell me, is Ra…kind to you, does he help your people?"**_

"_**Ra is merciful,**_" nodded Kaelu, but his eyes told a different story. "_**As long as we bring the offering of naquadah every year at this time, he does not harm us…"**_

"_**And he does not demand anything else, Elder?**_" Horace asked pointedly.

"_**Every generation he takes the best and most beautiful among us, for service in his chariot, they never return**_," Kaelu suddenly wiped a tear from his eye. "_**My eldest daughter was among those his servant gods took, twenty summers ago, I have never seen her since. Perhaps you have seen her in the heavens?**_"

Jana shared glances with her fellows. '_These people are in virtual slavery to this Ra._' Her disgust was palpable to the others over the mental link and they echoed her thoughts. She faced Kaelu squarely. "_**The heavens have no end Elder; as such we have not yet seen her. Ra is not someone we really interact with. If we see her, of course, and can negotiate the end of her servitude, we will do so and bring her back.**_"

"_**I understand and thank you**_," Kaelu bowed his head to them. "_**You truly are a benevolent goddess.**_"

The team inwardly winced again. _Hmm, forget skinning me alive, vaporization or banishment into a black hole, hopefully ES command will be in a good mood and insist on the former_, Jana thought wryly. Luckily her mental data would support her case at having tried every means available to convince Kaelu that they were not gods. On the walk to Nagada all their arguments had failed…the Elder only became convinced that they were trying to test his faith, and that should he come to believe otherwise, that she would smite all of the Abydonians in the caravan. Despite all this she knew she wasn't in too much trouble. They weren't Infiltrators after all.

'_Jana, the ship has stopped its cruise, and is now heading for the pyramid…" _Matty announced. _'It traced a circular course fifty leuga distant from the city, went right around and is now almost on top of the pyramid. Wonder why._'

'_Perhaps waiting for the weather caused by its arrival to disperse before landing?_' theorized Horace.

'_That's assuming a Worldender even needs visual confirmation of its landing site before commit_,' Matty retorted.

'_Wait a moment, you're telling me its going to land on the pyramid?_' Emily thought incredulously.

'_If you compare relative dimensions, yes, the ship itself is just a much larger pyramid with a matching hollow in its dorsal section. I wouldn't want to try to physically land a ship that big on a soft desert. Would you? Also Anona's survey of the microfracture damage to the pyramid supports this argument_.'

'_The Great Pyramids of Giza were landing platforms for Worldenders, oh I can see the Egyptologists choking on that_,' Jana felt only grim satisfaction at the thought. She had never met a more infuriating group of academics than those in Egyptology. Her late Grandfather was probably laughing his head off in Deus' realm at the lot of them. He was the first one to theorize a correlation between the Worldender ships pyramidal shape and the Egyptian Pyramids and had been promptly been drummed out of the Egyptology community for it.

_Have a good laugh Gramps_, she mused sadly, _wherever you are._

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The giant Worldender ship came to a stop over its landing platform, a beam of light shot down to shine directly with the tip of the pyramid. Its pilot seemingly satisfied with the alignment, the ship began its final descent. Residual amounts of ionization still left on the dark obsidian hull of the craft arced between it and the pyramid in the form of huge discharges of lightning. Its gravitic sublight drive straining as it kept the multi-billion mina starship from simply crashing catastrophically into the pyramid; the force of it blew sand away in all directions as finally it made contact at less than a passus per second. It was still enough for a massive shock to be felt throughout the pyramid.

This ship now locked down to secure itself for a proper seal against the pyramid, and massive lights now steadily began to come on all along the hull, as the ship seemingly split into four segments that exposed its inner core somewhat, only the upper segment remained sealed. It displayed the mighty Eye of Ra for all to see.

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Kemsa emerged from the secret passageway into the arrival room of the Chappa'ai with stealth. His Anubis helmet covered his head but its magic still allowed sight in the near darkness of the room. The armour of his god adorned his shoulders, abdomen, and back. He was here because Ra had briefly felt the presence of slaves in his temple, but they had seemingly vanished. Kemsa had been chosen among the Elite of Ra's forces to investigate. The honour of it was enough to humble his soul.

He carried his long staff weapon in a ready to attack pose as he threaded amongst the pillars of the arrival room, sticking to the shadows and using the magic of his helmet to see where the slaves had gone who dared to defile their god's temple. He initially saw nothing, but then he spied a footprint in the sand. Just a single glance told him it was a female slave, with no footwear…that was odd. The Abydonian slaves always wore an open toed sandal. He noticed that the footprints continued in a line towards the pillar on the opposite side of the room…

He spotted a blur of movement and what might be hair flapping…

Kemsa surged forward with speed, keeping to the shadows and was confident he could easily catch up to the slave and cut off her escape…

But he was baffled when there was…nothing…she had seemingly vanished, as had her footsteps in the sand…it just abruptly ended…

He heard a brief laugh on the other side of the room and whirled…there was a blur of movement, he charged, and again…nothing but empty air. Examining these footsteps clearly showed a male was here too.

_What is going on here?_ He wondered grimly. _When I catch these slaves, my master is going to make them suffer…_

He abruptly felt someone pat him on his posterior in an almost lecherous fashion, with supremely fast reflexes he brought his staff weapon around and swung its club to connect with…empty air _again._ That dratted female giggling returned and it sent his anger soaring…_How dare that female pest…_

He charged his staff, its tip blossoming and flaring open with a crackle of yellow light. He again saw movement…in a trice his staff was aimed and bolt of yellow magic lanced towards it…passing only through empty air and hitting the wall, leaving a blackened scorch mark.

Next he only knew pain as a something hard hit him exactly in the gap of his armour on the side of his abdomen, the air left his lungs as he slumped to the floor, and to make matters worse he felt his helmet being triggered somehow to retract. He recovered quickly sucking in air and swiped his staff where his attacker should have been, but it connected with nothing.

He regained his footing and tapped the hidden control on his shoulder that would unfold his helmet again…but nothing happened. He tapped again, same result. Kemsa could now feel fear for the first time…who…no whatever he was hunting had stopped the magic of his god…and that could only mean one thing…

He caught the blue beam of light out of the corner of his eye, and only had enough time to do two things before darkness claimed him…he turned to face the deadly magic and thought… _I was hunting gods_.

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Julius stood over the…human looking swarthy man in armour that they had ambushed and studied the weapon he'd been using. It was a staff just over a passus in length, which had a counterweight club on one end and a bulbous other end that had fired that synthetic plasma blast. The thing was flashy but would be highly awkward to fire in close quarters, not to mention damn near impossible to aim accurately for long range work beyond twenty five passus. It didn't even have basic sights and had no auto-target features. It was like someone took the somewhat advanced concept of a plasma weapon and married it to an ancient Flintlock rifle system in terms of accuracy and range. He chucked the piece of junk away; it was insulting to look at.

Anona was holding a medical scanner over the man and staring at the results.

'_Well?_' Dante prompted.

'_The stun energy in his nervous system is holding, and_ _he's somewhat human, Emily will need to go over these results, but I can tell you he's got higher muscle density, stronger bones than a normal human and no immune system._'

'_No immune system?! How in Deus' name is he still alive?_' Julius exclaimed into the team link.

'_I bet it has something to do with the unknown parasitical organism nestled inside the pouch organ in his abdomen, that's another thing that doesn't make him human, despite appearances,_' Anona replied dryly.

'_Well, we can't think about it now, we don't know how many we're going to face, before we get to Ra, this guy will keep until we revive him._" Julius gestured to the Anubis headed guard. _'We'll have to keep using our Cloaks until we're sure.'_

'_I spotted where he came in, we can use that to penetrate the ship,_' Dante gestured to the secret passage.

'_Then let's go catch ourselves an alien_.'

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If there was one thing Jana had never imagined doing while half her team was infiltrating and assaulting an actual Worldender ship, then it was this. She had protested valiantly, but Kaelu just wouldn't be dissuaded, and she didn't want to offend him by refusing his hospitality, which was still a big no-no even in Terran culture.

She had to stave off the absolute feeling of bliss that was threatening to overwhelm her as she mentally continued to keep tabs on the assault. It was very difficult. She challenged anyone to keep their guard up when you were lying face down on a comfortable bed, with a rather strong Abydonian man,(his name was Rasui) kneading and massaging your back and leg muscles with strong hands forged in the daily workings of a mine. They didn't have proper oils, but had something similar made from the fat of a Mastadge, that once you got over the smell, was actually quite soothing.

Emily was in the same room on another bed, completely lost in the sensations of the massage being applied by another tall Abydonian. Horace was in another room and had to already rather strongly decline various offers of marriage, and then for just plain sex. Thankfully, the word had got out and he was now also luxuriating in a massage.

Matty was practically laughing his circuits into overload, when he was not radiating his envy, biorobot or not, the artificial feelings of this would be preferable to none at all.

'_Emily if you can snap out of it for a second, I need your thoughts on the Anubis guard,_' Jana sent forcefully to her female colleague. It seemed to work as her eyes snapped open and she turned her head to rest on her hands.

'_Oh, well…ah that's good…sorry…uhm, yes, just from my earlier analysis on his genetic data before we were led down here, I can tell you that while he was born naturally, artificial changes were made in his ancestors' genetic code."_

'_An engineered race?_'

'_Indeed, he got the genes that make him this way from both mother and father,'_ Emily nodded.

'_And the Worldender's are the most likely culprit…hmmm, perhaps they're a race specifically engineered to be soldiers. Wonder how they're kept loyal?_'

'_There are many ways, but they could've been simply raised this way, not to mention good old fashioned brainwashing. Ra portrays himself as a god, no doubt using superior technology and knowledge; it stands to reason he must have some form of cognitive alteration techniques as well._'

'_I'll be sure to ask him, when the time comes.'_

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Horace Aurelius lay on his back and absorbed the pleasurable feelings Shemei was giving him as her soft yet firm hands worked on his chest and abdominals. Yet he was keeping a sharp eye on her roving hands, ready to stop her should she consider going lower. Whilst Terran culture encouraged no inhibitions or shame since technically everyone had access to everything, there was one thing that still reigned supreme on Terran morality, beyond even the Right to Life of any being who didn't forfeit it with its actions – and that was Family, and especially children. He currently had a wife (his second partner thus far in his life – his first rather rocky but satisfying marriage had run its course after fifty years) and two very precocious children, who liked to brag about 'My Daddy is an explorer'.

Shemei, Kaelu's second oldest, had been sent into his room for the express purpose of becoming pregnant. Horace knew many cultures on Earth in the past and currently among the Protectorate Races in the Commonality that practiced 'Bodyfather' – as a means to infuse new genes into the pool, and for the 'honour' of it. Horace was also aware that since the Abydonians considered him and the others 'gods', that that was also a factor.

There were less than ten thousand people in the city, and Kaelu had said there were no others on Abydos that he knew of. That made for a rather limited gene pool, and from that perspective Horace couldn't really blame the Elder for seizing on the opportunity. Depending on how things worked out, the Commonality might even decide to give some 'help' in that department to the Abydonians. There were plenty young single male Terrans who would be willing. He'd be willing to bet that there were already inquiries coming into the Agency on the matter – since almost the entire Commonality was probably focusing on the mental data the team was streaming back.

The interest in the first manned Stargate mission had been very great.

Shemei stopping her ministrations brought him out of his reverie and she had distinct look on her face that reminded him of when one of his children was about to do something they shouldn't.

'_**Horace**_,' she said suddenly and nervously. That was enough to get his attention, so far every Abydonian had called them '_**My Lord'**_ or '_**Goddess Jana or Emily'**_, but here she addressed him as…a person. He raised himself to a sitting position and looked into her dark eyes, and rather plain soft face. She looked to the doorway checking for anyone close and softly said, _**'I believe you are what you say, that you are not gods. Merely like us but with great knowledge.'**_

'Thank Deus,' he muttered with relief and looked at her with a smile. '_**Good, good, but why are you the only one?**_'

'_**I am not the only one**_,' Shemei whispered. '_**Those of us who feel as I do, that Ra is not a god; we are mostly young and our number is small. We dare not profess our beliefs to the Elders. They would punish us in fear of what Ra would do if he found out.**_'

'_**How did you come to believe this?**_' Horace asked curiously.

'_**I am custodian of a secret handed down generation after generation, which my ancestors took great pains to protect, ever since my people were taken from the First World.**_'

'_**Can you show it to me?'**_

Shemei hesitated and nodded, she took a cloth and began rub away the excess oil on her hands and his body, before she led him carefully out of the room.

She guided him to the north western part of the city, where it bordered some rocky crags that jutted out of the sand. It was also largely uninhabited, since there weren't enough Abydonians to fill the entire city. She pulled away some desert foliage that was clearly only there as camouflage and began unpacking rocks away from what had to be a cave entrance no bigger than a single gradus. He helped of course, after seeing what she was doing.

Inside was pure and utter darkness, but she had come prepared and lit a torch with a hand flint. The flickering flame soon cast its yellowish light on the flat carved stone walls; the floor was covered with ankle deep sand and when Horace finished adjusting his eyes' receptivity he gasped at what he was seeing.

On the wall closest to him was the 'Earth' glyph, as it was seen on the Terran Stargate…_a simple pyramid with a single moon directly above_. He moved further along the walls, and found hieroglyph writing. It was a narrative, a history. He moved along to another section to find the beginning of the story.

'_Jana, I hope you're paying attention,'_ he thought in the team link.

'_Emily and I've been with you since you entered the cave,_' she replied.

'_**Can you read this Horace?**_' Shemei held the torch for him.

'_**Before we came through the Chappa'ai we learned everything we could about the era when your ancestors were taken, including the writing,**_' he confirmed, and began to narrate aloud.

'_**A traveler from distant stars escaped from a dying world looking for a way to extend his own life. His body, decaying and weak...he couldn't prevent his own demise. His whole species was becoming extinct. So he searched the galaxy looking for a way to cheat death. He came to a world, rich with life, where he encountered a primitive race—humans. A species which, with all his powers and knowledge, he could maintain indefinitely. He realized within a human body, he had a chance for a new life. He apparently found a young boy. As the frightened villagers ran, night became day. Curious, and without fear, the boy walked towards the light**_.'

'_**Ra took him and possessed his body—like some kind of a...parasite looking for a host. And inhabiting this human form, he appointed himself ruler.**__** He used the Stargate to bring thousands of people here to this planet, as workers for the mines. Naquadah is the building block of all his technology; with it he sustains eternal life.**_'

'_**But eventually, back on Earth, an uprising, a rebellion forcing Ra to leave and the Stargate was buried**_. _**Fearful of a rebellion here, Ra outlawed reading and writing. He didn't want the people to remember the truth**_.'

Horace stopped at that point awed at what he had read. If events happened as outlined then it meant that Worldenders were responsible for the creation of ancient Egyptian civilization…after the rebellion, those Egyptians in high positions in the court must have appointed themselves as Pharoah or part of the Priesthood, and simply taken over the reigns so to speak…and the rest was history.

'_Scans of the cartouche buried with the Stargate indicated that it was ten thousand years old…meaning the potential arrival date for Ra on Earth was 8000BD, though I wonder when the rebellion occurred.'_ Matty's amazement was clearly felt by the whole team.

'_Before the cartouche's discovery on Earth eight years ago, the oldest known Egyptian artefacts dated to around 3000BD,_' Jana answered. _'Horace, is there anything else?'_

He politely guided Shemei further along the various walls and stopped when he saw something familiar…_another cartouche_! '_Well, I just saved us a bunch of time calculating the stellar coordinates back to Earth. It seems the Abydonian's ancestors recorded Earth's Stargate address for posterity as well, probably in the hope that one day the gate would be reopened_. _Though we'll still need to break out the Astrogation gear to identify the point of origin glyph on the Abydonian gate_.' He kneeled and picked up the cracked lower pieces of the cartouche that had broken off and faded over the preceding thousands of years, taking the Point of Origin glyph with it.

'_How's Anona and the others faring?_' he asked and put down the worn pieces.

'_See for yourself._'

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Julius took point as they entered the interior of the starship, through an airlock of sorts that the Anubis guard had left open rather carelessly. Then again, it probably never occurred to them that anyone would breach their security; after all, in their minds there were only human slaves on this world, who were cowed into believing that Ra and his guards were deities.

His immediate thoughts after going down the first rather wide corridor was; '_This must the gaudiest starship interior I've ever seen!_', obsidian black floors so polished that it reflected the lighting, walls and even the bulkheads were covered in gold with endless rows of hieroglyphs engraved on them. He could also give a scathing criticism to the shape and overall design; there were alcoves and shadowy unlit gaps behind bulkheads that just begged for infiltrators or boarders to use them for cover…then again that sword cut both ways, since the defending soldiers could use the same cover, in the end it was tactics and who had the better aim, which would win the day in a boarding action here.

It was something the three of them quickly took advantage of, while they were Cloaked from both sensors and in the visible spectrum, they were not insubstantial. If a large enough patrol showed up, then they would forced to retreat to prevent discovery. So far, no such patrol had been encountered, in fact, it seemed the ship was operating on a skeleton crew, judging from the passive scan the Defender gauntlet on his left arm was giving him. It detected thirty six lifeforms – fifteen humans, twenty 'guards', and one that was 'unknown'.

'_We better hurry this up, no telling when that Anubis guard is going to be missed_,' Dante advised, acting as rear guard, with Anona anchoring them both in the middle.

Julius nodded and he sped up a bit, their route towards the top of the pyramid overlaid in his vision. They passed a few rooms which seemed to be yet more of the localized Displacement stations they had found in the Arrival hall, but they avoided using them and took the hard way…obviously it would be suspicious if one activated with no apparent reason. So they had to do things the old fashioned way, so to speak, using hairpin turn ascending ramps at each deck to ascend to the next.

They had their first encounter with the guards in one of the ramps, three of them walking abreast, armed with those clumsy staff weapons – and no way to get past. Julius debated retreat onto the previous deck and waiting for them to pass, but they had to start making a permanent dent in the numbers Ra could call on. In Legionnaire training, the one thing hammered into their brains by the Commonality was… '_In a battle, whether against a superior or inferior foe, one thing is constant; both could triumph with sheer weight of numbers on their side._' It was a cold hard lesson learned from the Great War and the sum of Terran history, which was never dismissed or forgotten in the Commonality's collective subconscious. His ingrained respect for the life of the guards was also not an issue, committing 'slavery' of the body was a terribly barbaric thing, but the Abydonians weren't even allowed a past, reading and writing forbidden…it was even more heinous to Terrans; it was a slavery of the mind.

He raised his right arm, around which was his Offensive Gauntlet and with a thought, a free electron laser with a properly scaled output in the X-ray band of the energy spectrum seared invisibly towards the leftmost guard from the dynamic emitter on the gauntlet. The chestplate of the armour lasted exactly twenty nanoseconds before it gave way as nothing more than vaporized slag, allowing the energy through; which burned a cauterized hole about the size of a fist through the guard. Dante had let loose with his preferred weapon, a matter disruptor, which reduced his target into constituent atoms with a bright and brief flash of light. Anona winced as her guard died using an overpowered stun beam – it caused the entire nervous system to fatally shut down, but was an instant non-suffering painless death.

A rather odd loud tone suddenly resounded throughout the ramp, and as it repeated, Julius sighed, '_That's let the animals loose, had to happen at some point…disperse Cloaks, Barriers…_'

The chroniton and light replicating fields from the Defensive gauntlet switched off, only to be replaced with body conforming off white energy, before it switched frequencies out of the visible spectrum. The gauntlet also reported scanning emissions that had already detected their lifesigns.

'_Go! Go!'_

The ES team made it onto the next deck, just as bulkhead doors closed and locked the ramps down. There were still four decks to go before they reached the upper quadrant of the ship with the 'unknown' life sign. Undaunted the team advanced to the next ramp, where Dante simply used another matter disruption to disintegrate a section of the 'blast' door.

At the next deck, they had a reception committee. Five guards, three with Anubis heads, and two with what Julius recognized as a Horus figured helmets, their staff weapons primed, aimed and ready to blast anything that came through. The five initially hesitated in shooting, because of their surprise. To their eyes they were three, well built and attractive, naked humans only wearing the Gauntlets around their arms.

They paid for their hesitation, when Julius promptly lasered two guards through their chests. The remaining three opened fire at a range of mere five passus, which needed no fancy marksmanship to hit the three Terrans. The bright orange plasma bolts seared through air, and promptly fizzled and vanished a mere three digitus from Julius' chest. It didn't even bring the Barrier field into the visible spectrum, (the plasma not powerful enough to properly excite the disintegration field of the Barrier). It was a technique pioneered by the Chinese Dynasty in the Great War – to not only have personal graviton shields around their soldiers, but to also layer a passive disintegration field over that. It had effectively rendered the Roman Empire's feared Heavy Plasma projectors obsolete.

'_**You've got to do better than that**_,' Julius shook his head. Anona killed another with a nervous system shutdown, and the remaining two were felled in short order afterwards.

The three of them continued on and with a bitter taste in their mouths they proceeded to dispatch every guard they encountered. Julius didn't feel any satisfaction in this battle, it wasn't a battle; the guards might as well have been throwing rocks at them. The only time they got slightly threatened with injury was when the enemy had set up a large cannon sized version of their plasma staffs. It was powerful enough to burn through the Disintegration layer of Julius' Barrier, and hit his shield, and the kinetic energy had flung Julius ten feet backward to eventually slide to a stop on his butt. He shook the cobwebs loose from inside his rattled head, stood again none the worse for wear and watched as Dante simply vaporized the cannon and its operator.

Anona seemingly couldn't tolerate the thought of taking another guard's life, seeing how easily the enemy was getting beaten, and now simply used the normal Stun beam on them. It didn't surprise Julius; she wasn't a fully trained and conditioned Legionnaire, after all.

Reaching the upper deck of the ship took another twenty minutes, mostly because there seemed to be more bulkhead doors the higher you went in the ship, and all of them were shut. They had to wait for Dante's gauntlet to recharge a bit before they could burn through them all.

They paused their advance just outside the chamber where they deduced Ra had fortified himself in.

'_Okay, Jana, any last second instructions?_' Julius thought towards their team leader.

'_Do not expect it to be so easy, he'll have more advanced weapons than his peons and while I'd prefer him alive for interrogation, do not capture him at the risk of injury or death._'

Julius mentally nodded and gestured to the door. Dante took his cue and standing to a side, fired two blasts at the large bulkhead…it glowed and after it faded a large hole over two passus wide was in the door. He took point again and walked into the expansive and rather luxurious chamber beyond, his eyes immediately locked onto the central area of the room; all the architecture seemed designed to lead your sight directly towards the small throne-like Egyptian style golden chair. Silk rafters hung on the ceiling and draped on the obsidian floor, once again gold seemed to be the dominant theme here too. Clearly the Worldender culture revered the worthless metal in some way.

The scene in front of them, however, was enough to give the Terrans' pause. Arrayed behind and to the side of the throne were four equally spaced Anubis guards; each standing behind and aiming one of those large plasma cannons at them. Around the throne in a circle…were human children; boys and girls, ranging in age from six to twelve standard years.

Seated on the throne, was Ra himself.

He wore ornate, rather garish, glittering robes, with an elaborate gold headpiece that was similar to a Pharoah's mask, and behind his head was mounted a large golden disk set in two curved tusks – clearly meant to be a depiction of the sun. It would've been disconcerting staring into such a mask for someone from a less advanced culture, to the Terrans…it was rather amusing.

The four staff cannons were a concern though, if all fired at once on a single target, it would probably be enough to tax even a Barrier field.

'_**Hiding behind a human shield made up of children,**_' Julius sneered in disgust. _**'Not very god like.'**_

'_**This is where your attempt to destroy me ends.**_' Ra's voice was oddly distorted, probably by that mask of his, and resounded throughout the throne chamber, again designed to do so for intimidation. _**'I have been watching your battle through my ship.**_'

'_**Hence the plasma cannons**_,' nodded Julius. _**'And we are not here to destroy you.'**_

Ra's only response was silence, but the slight movement of his head, was enough for the Terrans to know that the alien was surprised. '_**We're primarily interested in capturing you, and would only kill you if you gave us no other choice in the matter.**_'

The eyes of Ra's mask suddenly glowed, and his body trembled underneath the robes, and angrily said, _**'You may have advanced greatly since I last ruled on your planet, but I created your civilization, and can just as easily destroy it!'**_

'_**You can certainly try, although I hope you've got something bigger in the arsenal than your little plasma guns.'**_

'_**You will remove your weapons,' **_Ra said imperiously.

'_**And this is the part where I say, "Or what?"'**_ Julius rolled his eyes in annoyance at the melodrama of the Worldender.

'_**I have dispatched two fighters towards the Abydonian city, that await my order,'**_ Ra announced with a superior air. _**'You may not be vulnerable to their plasma cannons, but I assure you the Abydonians will be.'**_

The three Terrans just stood there, their faces neutral without any expression and a slight staring match ensued. Julius suddenly grinned and the room they were in rocked and trembled as if a minor earthquake had just occurred. Ra, being seated, was almost thrown off his throne, and the children around him crouched to the ground to retain their balance, giving a clear line of fire…

Using every bit of natural and technologically enhanced speed he had Julius darted left…bringing his right arm to bear, and lasered the left most guard straight through the head. The guard's brain didn't even have time to send the nerve impulse to his hand before a good section of it was vaporized.

Anona, had in the meantime, sent a blue beam of stun energy at relativistic speed towards the now vulnerable false god, and had flung her feet from under her to fall on her back, it was just as well she did, because two of the three remaining cannons sent plasma bolts at her and came within two digitus of hitting her face. The last cannon's aim had been upset by the sudden 'earthquake', which sent its bolt up into the angular ceiling, where it blew a considerable chunk out of it.

Dante, in those few moments, had twirled himself to the side, flinging disintegration bolts at two of the guards, who promptly vanished into particulate matter.

Ra was struck instantly with the Stun beam; his entire body suddenly stiffened, the energy causing the nerves in his body to send conflicting messages, but clearly he was made of sterner stuff than his guards, as after a moment he could still move. Anona from her position on the floor saw this and simply fired again, with a setting that would kill a human…and finally Ra keeled over to the side and fell awkwardly on top of one of his slaves that had been acting as his shield.

Finally, Julius killed the last Anubis guard before he could get another shot off with his cannon.

Silence fell on the room. The young slaves helped their fellow out from under Ra, before giving one look of sheer terror at the recovering Terrans and fleeing down a set of stairs.

'We'll have to see what can be done to help them,' Anona was helped to her feet by Julius…_ever the gentleman_.

'They're still young and can perhaps be reintegrated into the Abydonian culture,' Dante said as he walked over towards the unconscious form of Ra, and rather easily picked up the Worldender, placing him on the floor near the other two. Julius felt around the neck area of the Pharoah mask, for a switch similar to those on the helmets of the Anubis guard. He eventually found one that was quite well disguised, but it was still in the exactly same place. The Mask came to life and began to fold itself into the golden neck brace the false god wore.

Ra looked barely older than the slaves that had been around him; his long dark hair intricately braided and had the same light brown skin colour as was typical of the Abydonians, but had faded considerably at the lack of exposure to the sun. He was incredibly handsome, and it was probably what had made the alien within choose the young man so long ago.

'More than ten thousand years, what an incredibly long time to live,' Dante shook his head in awe.

'If Naquadah can somehow be utilized to make a single body effectively immortal for that period of time…" Dante looked intrigued. The Commonality had fifty years after its establishment in 1023AD, perfected a method of conquering death. The unique 'energy' of consciousness had finally been quantified after many centuries of research and since then an individual could be 'rescued' from a dying body and downloaded into a biorobot – a nanoassembled human body made to any genotype specifications, or as with Matty, be downloaded into a fully artificial construct. Consciousnesses could also be 'backed up'. When Terran went into a life threatening situation where death came too quickly to be 'rescued', it would allow a version of that Terran to remain behind. Despite all this, Terrans never abandoned natural reproduction and evolution (95 percent of the Commonality was still religious in some fashion, despite the might of science, and there was no logical reason to stop something that had been working for eons); new children were born all the time. A natural Terran lifespan was now just under six hundred T-years thanks to current medical technology, coupled with 'Downloading' into biorobots and that extended into theoretical infinity.

'_I agree it looks promising,_' Emily suddenly said into the team link. _'We'll find out how Ra does it when our Science teams start picking that ship apart, but I have this feeling that there's a catch somewhere in the process._ _Anyway, Anona, give me scan of the Worldender, perhaps we can 'purge' the alien out of the young man._'

As Anona materialized her scanner and hovered it over Ra's prone form, Julius said, _'By the way, that was incredible timing, Jana, thanks for the assist.'_

'_You're welcome, though I can't take full credit for it; I miscalculated the yield on the nanomissile…_'

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**A few minutes ago…**

Jana and Emily were again on the roof of Kaelu's home. They had politely begged off further massage, as the death their teammates were inflicting within the Worldender ship had effectively ruined their appreciation and mood for the luxurious activity. They had barely finished wiping off the mastadge oil from their bodies when Matty announced that two aerospace fighters had been launched from the ship and were heading to Nagada City at a blistering pace.

'_Tactical analysis, Matty,'_ Jana ordered as she stared into the pitch darkness of the night, adjusting her sight into the infrared spectrum – the storm had finally dissipated completely, and allowed her to see the distant pyramid and Worldender ship from their position. The fighters had a drooping curved wing design from a frontal perspective, and she could see the heat bloom of their internal systems.

'_Gravity induction engine, subluminal only, weapons is two scaled up versions of the Plasma staffs the others have encountered in the ship, only has a single pilot. Its hull has low to moderate strength, no Barriers of any form.'_ The SB rattled off as it flung active sensor emissions at the two craft.

'_I could hit it with a laser, but that hull strength could probably protect it enough to take a few shots,_' Jana mused, which was unacceptable, as their intention was clearly to strafe the city and the vulnerable Abydonians. She made her decision and a rather larger Gauntlet appeared on her right arm; it was quite thick, almost seven digitus, and it expanded into a larger size, snaking sinuously upward and further supporting itself on her upper arm. It was rather heavy, but she could handle it readily.

'_Ah, are you sure that's wise, Jana?'_ Matty was distinctly worried.

'_It's the only way to take out both at the same time._'

She aimed her arm upwards at an angle, concentrated and estimated the yield she would need…her gauntlet gave an affirmative response, the nanomissile was armed and ready to fire. Her mind gave detonation instructions, and from one of the four tiny tube openings near her fist, came a muffled report of sound, no louder than a clap of the hands.

Both Terrans knew what was coming, and turned their heads away.

The two fighters had barely covered half the distance to Nagada when the tiny fuzzy logic guided nanomissile reached its pre-programmed detonation coordinates; the containment field on its payload of one eighth of a gram of antimatter, fizzled out.

The resultant flash and annihilation, causing a hundred percent pure release of photons, was enough to briefly turn night to day, and both fighters were instantly vaporized, as was anything else in a two stadium radius from the point of detonation. The shockwave released raised sand into the air again, allowing it to be seen with the naked eye as it impressively radiated outward in a perfect sphere of energy. It also rattled the building Jana and Emily were standing on something fierce, but was luckily sturdy enough to withstand the low scale 3.0 level earthquake.

'_Jana, a little less yield next time, for Deus' sake!_' Matty exclaimed.

'_Merda, sorry._' Jana replied sheepishly. _'I suppose it would've been better to use nanogram amounts of antimatter and target both individually with separate missiles_.' She felt though that she could hardly be blamed for it, nothing replaced hard experience when using any form of technology or skill. Though she could rapidly learn knowledge of a skill set downloaded directly into her mind, the physical performance of it was another matter, and that could still only be done by the age old adage, 'Practice, practice, practice.'

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Two days passed. And it was one of frenetic activity for the ES team, dealing with aftermath of Ra's defeat and capture.

Jana ordered Anona and Dante to begin working on aligning the Stargate to establish wormholes back to Earth and until that could be successfully done; there would be no reinforcement from the Agency. Jana and her team had not been sent into the unknown without backup though; an ES starship had been poised on the northward border of Commonality space, ready to receive the signal to undertake the one month journey to Abydos…in the unlikely event that the Stargate didn't want to align. It was barely two hours work after waiting for darkness to scan the night sky with their Astrogation gear, mapping the coordinates on the Abydos Stargate. They determined the Abydos Point of Origin glyph, which was rather obvious in hindsight – _a simple pyramid with three moons linked with a line_.

Julius had been tasked with keeping Ra under control, not to mention the six surviving guards – who had been locked up in a nice water laden prison pit that he had discovered in the ship; stripped completely of everything, except their loin cloth like underwear. Julius had also brought Ra to Nagada city for a nice 'show and tell' exercise. Kaelu had been thoroughly astonished that the great and powerful 'Ra' was nothing more now than a powerless young man and it was also enough to sow the first seeds of doubt in his mind about the Terran's 'godhood'. Ra, also stripped to only wearing underwear was thoroughly shackled with neutronium anti-gravity wrist and leg manacles which hovered him through the air under Julius' mental direction.

Jana had decided against waking Ra up, though, and making him float through a gauntlet of clearly angry Abydonians, now fully disabused of the notion that the Worldender was a deity. Whilst they would be fully justified in it, an Abydonian lynch mob was an utterly barbaric behaviour that she would not see happen on her watch. So she kept the false god at a distance and only let the city elders come within arms reach.

Emily, needing no order, began to apply her speciality amongst the Abydonians. Word quickly spread and soon she was rather inundated, and was forced to open a makeshift clinic in one of the empty buildings of Nagada city. Most of her patients actually had nothing wrong with them; they simply wanted to see one of their deliverers from the oppression of Ra in person. There were a few cases of terminal disease, mainly cancer, but a simple injection of specially programmed nanites cleared it up and also switched off the faulty genes responsible – after the nanoscopic robots did their job, they simply gave a signal and Emily retrieved them using the same injector she had used to put them in. She also found herself using her Psychology skills in beginning the rehabilitation of Ra's personal slaves – who had been coaxed out of hiding in the ship and also been given the 'show and tell' of Ra's true nature.

Horace and Matty, on the other hand, had begun to familiarize themselves with the Worldender ship itself. Its primary power source seemed to be a rudimentary form of fusion, enhanced by injecting naquadah into the power core. It was impressive that so much energy could be produced from a basic Fusion reaction with the addition of Naquadah, but it was still an antiquated technology to the Terrans.

Its computers were still based on ones and zeros, but the hardware was reasonably advanced and used a form of manufactured crystal lattice as a storage media, and a processor encased in a localized subspace field to take advantage of faster than light internal processing. Accessing, decrypting and interpreting the databanks would be an ongoing process for quite a while. Matty, however, found two rather astounding and shocking facts within the first day of work.

The ship's main weapons were actually rather few in number; again these were Plasma Projectors that was scaled up to hurl bolts almost three passus in diameter, with a maximum destructive yield of a five thousand megamina with each shot. The reason for the lack of ship weaponry became apparent when Matty decoded the fact that the ship was the Worldender equivalent of a 'pleasure barge' for Ra. The warship version would have added hull segments attached to the central pyramid, giving it a more rounded appearance when viewed from above and obviously, a lot more mounted main guns, and point defence against aerospace fighters.

The passive defences and Barriers of the ship consisted of what a charitable Terran would call; _a rudimentary navigational deflector not fit to be mounted on a cargo ship, let alone a ship-of-the-line_. The thing wasn't even multi-layered; even the early space pioneers who had ventured out of Humanity's cradle, when the FTL age had begun, had left Sol with better Barriers on their ships.

Only two aspects of the ship had impressed Horace and Matty, its hull and FTL system. The hull, an alloy of naquadah and trinium, had an impressive resistance against plasma and kinetic damage, which would make it nigh invulnerable in a battle against a basic Industrialized or Post Industrial civilization.

Then there was the FTL Drive. An astonished Matty reported that it would propel the ship at a velocity that would allow it cross a ten thousand light year distance in about two T-years, which was much faster than the Commonality could achieve with its own form of FTL. The way it did this though would not appeal to the average Terran, as it was horribly destructive to nature.

It 'punctured' through normal space-time, directly into the Epsilon layer of subspace strata and using a modulated quantum field that it projected around itself, travelled at about eight thousand times the speed of light. Its speed could theoretically be increased by simply increasing power to the quantum field and burrowing deeper into subspace; and since Commonality power generation was a millennia in advance of basic Fusion, this FTL technique would practically open up the Galaxy and beyond to the Terrans.

'If we could just find a way to penetrate that deep into subspace without using that 'puncture' technique,' Matty whined. He, Jana and the rest of the team, were in the Stargate arrival room, waiting for the wormhole from Earth.

'Relax, Matty, Astrophysics specialists are already working on it back home,' Jana pointed out. 'But I don't think we'll ever retire our Negative Mass Drives, since you can't scan normal space from that depth of subspace, it leaves you rather frighteningly blind to the universe around you. Besides, their most optimistic projections say they'll have the problem solved in four years, personally I'd give them six years.'

The Stargate lit up abruptly and the inner track began spinning and locking in coordinates rapidly.

'Until then we're going to have to rely on the Stargate network you uncovered in the databanks of the ship. Perhaps even build a class of ship that can fit through it.'

The entire ES team had been thrilled at the news from Matty. The Abydonian-Terran Stargates were not the only ones in the Galaxy, as a matter of fact; the two Gates were the proverbial drop in the ocean. There were literally thousands of Stargates on planets all over the Galaxy, and they could _all_ be visited with the effort it took to take a single step. It would mean that their lives would no longer be spent in seemingly endless starship journeys into the unexplored regions.

Their enthusiasm was dampened though, at the facts Matty had uncovered about the Worldender race. They called themselves the Goa'uld, and used the Stargate as a tool of conquest and domination. The other fact that had practically sent the entire Commonality reeling in outrage and anger was that Ra had not been the only Goa'uld to play god on Earth. Almost every ancient pantheon of gods, seemingly had a Goa'uld behind it some fashion, and as with the Abydonians, the Goa'uld had taken people from Earth and through the Stargate to be used as slaves.

Jana had a feeling that the days of the ES Agency's ethos, with its pure scientific and exploration goals were numbered. The Commonality would not stand by and do nothing while millions perhaps billions of their human cousins were trapped in ignorance and slavery all over the Galaxy. The Legion would naturally become more heavily involved, but she would fight tooth and nail for them to remain fifty-fifty partners with the Agency in future endeavours through the Stargate.

The event horizon exploded into being inside the maw of the Gate, and after settling down for a few moments into stability, Terran science teams began to emerge with frost on their nude bodies.

One of them was a small, but formidable woman of Chinese descent, who regarded the frost with a critical eye. _No doubt wondering if she could make improvements in the Stargate to get rid of that little effect_, Jana thought in amusement. The woman began to brush off the frost from her body whilst stepping away from the event horizon to make way for the others. She spotted Jana and immediately strode over; wiping her severely styled black hair clear of water droplets.

'Jana,' she greeted, bowing her head slightly.

'Ye Mei,' Jana returned towards the ES Agency's Chief of Science.

'So I see you have found me another nice little artefact," Ye Mei spoke in Chinese, and surveyed the arrival room around her – her dark eyes suddenly glowed with blue wispy energy, which was a misconception, as it was actually energized nanites emerging and essentially turning the Science Chief's eyes into biological scanners.

'In some respects it is an artefact, though still fully operational,' conceded Jana, speaking in the same language. 'It was almost nostalgic when I took my own tour of the ship, the power core especially.'

Ye Mei snorted in derision. 'Fusion, hmmph. These Goa'uld _chùsheng_ might as well be using internal combustion.'

The last of the science teams came through after which the Stargate shut down with that odd high pitched sound and just like that there were eighty of the best scientists, linguists and engineers in the Agency on Abydos; ready to begin picking apart the Goa'uld mothership and all the potential secrets it held.

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_A/N: Hope you enjoyed. My focus has been to cast us Earthlings as the equivalent of an Elder Race in the Stargate Universe and also to explore the question of 'What would we be like a thousand years after a Technological singularity?' If you think I've made Terran's too powerful, well I'm only trying to stick to a realistic premise – just look at how far we've come just in the past ten years, never mind the previous century…how advanced will we be _two thousand_ years from now? I've_ _always got the impression from SG canon that the Ancients and Asgard lacked that_ 'push the envelope' _mindset of exploration and growth that we humans have. Stay tuned. HPAJ fans can relax, its still in the works, this fic just crawled out of my brain and demanded attention. _

_Megamina = Megatons of TNT C__hùsheng = Chinese slur 'animal or inhuman'_


	3. Chapter 3 The Jaffa Master

**Chapter 3 – The Jaffa Master**

_A/N: Some of the utopian ideas and structures of Earth belong to the master of sci-fi, Arthur C. Clarke. I don't own those ideas, blah,blah. I just slapped them together. Don't sue. _

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Bratac of Chulak, inwardly cursed as he was awoken early. Staying absolutely still and keeping his breathing in the same rhythm he listened carefully for what had awoken him. For a brief time, silence, then a slight creak on the wooden stair that was just outside his bedroom. The lightness of the creak showed that whoever had penetrated his house was small…and there was only one who it could be. Bratac stifled his automatic reaction, which was to groan in annoyance, and curse his student for his blind eagerness and single-minded drive to achieve. It was way beyond what any of his twelve year old peers was capable of, then again, none of them carried the burden of losing a father in so dishonourable a manner.

Bratac felt carefully for the time to pounce, when his attacker would be standing within arms reach, certain of his victory, dropping his guard…now! He bolted upward and grabbed the surprised twelve year old boy by the arms before he could even begin to swing the Bashaak training staff.

A moment later found young Teal'C, disarmed handily, and pinned to hard stone floor in a painful takedown hold, and groaning in anger. Bratac knew the young one was not directing that anger at him, but rather at himself.

'When attacking an enemy in his own stronghold, he always has the advantage. Never assume that you have overcome all the obstacles he has laid in your path, even after you defeat him,' instructed Bratac sternly. 'Understand?'

'Yes, Master,' groaned Teal'C after Bratac had let up on the hold.

'Good,' Bratac let go and the dark skinned Jaffa boy immediately scampered to his feet. He stared at the boy carefully, waiting for him to show any sign of the pain that was most assuredly in his extremities after that form of hold. After a full minute of not so much as the slightest twitch, Bratac smiled and nodded. 'Very good, now return to your mother and break your fast. Meet me in the square, wearing boots, pants, and mail shirt…today you will do something special.'

Teal'C's eyes widened momentarily in excitement before it dulled after applying his neophyte discipline, bowing and then running gangly like the twelve year old he was out of the room. Bratac heard the door to his home open and close, and just like that was alone again.

Alone.

It was a word that had defined his existence for the past forty years.

Every day he returned to an empty house after seeing to his duties as First Prime of Apophis, on the many worlds that Goa'uld controlled. It was a duty he did with a festering resentment, because he had no choice, but if he had a choice…then the false god he served would've been dead a long time ago by his hand. Forty years ago, Apophis chose to sacrifice a world under his control to Ba'al in a territorial dispute. The Serpent god had done so because his own flagship had met with severe damage in the battle, and like the cowardly false god he was, he retreated with his fleet from Bratac's former homeworld, leaving it at the mercy of Ba'al – who had not felt in a charitable mood to the Jaffa population that had once served Apophis.

Among those trapped on the world as it was bombed from orbit, was his beloved wife Emta.

It had been the final blow to his belief in the divinity of the Goa'uld. The seeds of that realization had already been sown by his own father, in his tales of his encounter with the legendary Sodan warriors – Jaffa who had been blessed to live free of the Goa'uld by the power of the Ancients. His father had taken up such a cause, and taught his son the same ways and ideals…and the dream of freedom for all Jaffa. His father was another casualty of the same battle that had taken his wife.

In retrospect, perhaps that was why he had taken Teal'C under his wing, even against the advice of his own Lieutenants. He saw in the boy a potential he himself had. Bratac had been very carefully sowing the same seeds his father had. Showing time and again, little examples here and there of why the Goa'uld were not 'all knowing gods' as they professed to be. Bratac never came out directly with it; he would let Teal'C draw that conclusion himself one day when the truth was plain before his eyes.

_Enough wool gathering Jaffa,_ he cursed himself and began to prepare his own morning meal.

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In his full First Prime armour, minus the Serpent helmet, with his staff weapon in right hand and Zat'nika'tel stun weapon, slung on his forearm, he strode through the streets of Chulak city, and observed the daily bustle of Jaffa society. Anyone who met his eye, bowed slightly in respect, before going about their daily business. It was peaceful days such as this that he longed to see. Thankfully, Apophis had not made any of the other Goa'uld angry enough lately to be interested in his territory – meaning that the Jaffa of Chulak could rest.

Oh, it was inevitable that those days would end, Apophis being who he was; with an ego that a planet would crumble under with its size, made it a certainty that these days of peace would end sooner or later. Many Jaffa took the opportunity to train and ready themselves for that day in such times. Already Bratac could see such dark clouds approaching. Word he had received from Apophis himself just yesterday was that the Supreme System Lord Ra had not yet returned from a periodic journey in his Ha'tak to one of his outer slave worlds on the mysterious far side of his domain – he was already three months overdue in returning to his capital world. If Ra did not return for another three – it would be assumed by the other Goa'uld that he had somehow fallen…and like the greedy cowards they all were, they would scramble to position themselves and divide up Ra's domain…and would begin to fight for it.

Bratac could do nothing more about it than he always did; he made sure the Lieutenants kept their ranks in order, that discipline was upheld, training was done and up to par, and all the myriad of tasks a First Prime is expected to. Today would hopefully be an easy day of simply training Teal'C.

Bratac arrived in the square and as expected there was the boy. He stood like a statue, waiting next to the water fountain, surveying the various comings and goings of Jaffa carefully, trying to see the signs of who and what they were by merely looking at them. The boy spotted him approaching and his passiveness was broken.

'Applying your lessons in observation, hmmm?'

'Yes Master, though how successful I am, I do not know.'

'Success or failure at your age is not important, merely learning, young one,' Bratac placed a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. 'Come.'

They walked out of the main city gates and into the forested wilderness beyond, following well worn paths. It took only fifteen minutes for Teal'C to realize the direction they were headed in.

'Our goal is the Chappa'ai?' Teal'C said in excitement.

'Indeed,' nodded Bratac, and reached into his belt and gave his secondary Zat'nika'tel to the boy. 'I'm going to take you to one of Lord Apophis' slave worlds; it is a realm where the gravity is greater than Chulak's by a fair amount. You will be heavier on this world, and it makes training all the more difficult…moves and skills that you once claimed mastery of will seemingly be completely new to you.'

'And it will make me stronger as well?'

'Yes, if you spend enough time training there,' nodded Bratac, wincing inwardly as he recalled his own high gravity training.

'Will we see any slaves?'

'No, we will not be going near the slave city; our task is on training only, not observing humans under lash of whip.' He said grimly. If there was one species he wished would cast off the shackles of oppression somehow, that he now recognized the Jaffa were under too, then it was humans. Despite being slaves and lacking in strength, they had numbers in the extreme on their side; if it could coincide with a Jaffa insurgency somehow…then maybe freedom could be within their grasp. But the invisible yoke on his people were as strong as it had ever been.

They arrived in the large clearing where the Chappa'ai was situated, and its surrounding stone plinths that the Jaffa Priests used in religious ceremonies, when welcoming Apophis through the portal. Ever since Bratac had had his own personal revelation of the false gods he had come to see how many aspects of his way of life were there to instil their dependency on the false gods. The…parasite…in his belly that he depended on for his life, and 'supposedly' gave him the strength and long life he had, the Kel'No'Reem, the religion, everything … Goa'uld chains.

He stopped at the control pedestal of the Chappa'ai, and instructed the boy on its basic uses, and what should never be attempted – such as when a portal opened from another realm, never to run into the maw, the portals were one way only. He also gave Teal'C the sequence of the planet they were going to and the return sequence of Chulak. He ordered the boy to memorize and recite it for him, by pretending to push the buttons on the control pedestal. Teal'C took almost half-an-hour to do this to Bratac's satisfaction, and gave the boy the honour of activating a Chappa'ai for the first time.

Bratac's mouth twitched slightly in amusement as Teal'C grinned in exuberant triumph when the portal activated, and practically ran towards it, pausing just before the swirling vertical pool to wait for his Master.

'I will go first young one, wait a few moments, then follow.' Bratac instructed, waiting for a nod from the boy before stepping through easily…_the brief moment of seeing stars around him…twisting in the ether of the Universe…_then he was completing his step in the higher gravity of Ramu-Yun.

He quickly moved aside and off the small series of steps, and waited. Teal'C practically flew out of the Chappa'ai, covered in frost, the hallmark of a person who had never used the portal before, before landing in a rather undignified fashion at the base of the steps. The Chappa'ai shut down and he watched the boy struggle to get up and was breathing heavily.

'Not easy, is it?' Bratac asked rhetorically, referring to both the gravity and portal travel. 'Another lesson of the Chappa'ai is that your speed going in is the same going out. Running into the portal is not advised unless you have the enemy snapping at your heels.'

Bratac found a seat on a large stone nearby and watched as the boy rolled over onto his back and he struggled to get used to the gravity. It would take some time and it allowed Bratac to survey the surroundings of Ramu-Yun. The planet was in actuality one of five moons, orbiting a massive gaseous planet that dominated the sky even in daytime. The colours of the plant life on this world were a veritable mix of odd hues, and everything was bathed in the sheen of the gas planet's purple light.

Finally, Teal'C struggled to his feet awkwardly, his breathing still laboured but the young lad's strength was allowing him to push through it. Humans slaves born and raised on Ramu-Yun were valued commodities in Apophis' domain, their adapted strength while still no match for a Goa'uld, made them excellent heavy labourers and pleasure slaves. Jaffa, made by the Goa'uld to be naturally stronger was also sent to such planets to realize their full potential.

'Excellent,' praised Bratac giving his apprentice a solid thump on the back in congratulations. Teal'C still wobbly legs gave out from under him and once again had to struggle to his feet. 'Good you've learned to stand, follow.' And promptly walked away from the clearing…intending his apprentice to learn to walk in the higher gravity…

Such intentions were for naught, as the Chappa'ai abruptly lit up, with the heavy sound of scraping naquadah alloy. Bratac whirled and rushed with all the speed he could muster towards his struggling apprentice. He grabbed him around the waist and lifted, sprinting towards the treeline. They reached cover, Bratac gesturing for silence from the boy who nodded.

The Chappa'ai activated in its usual spectacular fashion as the deadly unstable water retreated into the maw of the portal and settled into normalcy. Bratac doubted that anything 'hostile' would come through, as no one was at war with Apophis at the moment, but there were many dangers in the Universe besides a rival Goa'uld who knew how to use the Chappa'ai.

The portal remained still…nothing came through…and then without fanfare it vanished and the Chappa'ai returned to dormancy.

'Was that normal, Master?' whispered Teal'C with a hint of anxiousness.

'It might be that someone established a portal and then thought better of coming through or realized they had entered the wrong sequence, or it might something entirely else. No matter, our training awaits.'

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Cloaked Microdrone swarm designated _Phi 99_, on exiting the Stargate immediately saw the heat signatures of two hidden Jaffa in the bushes. Its controller more than a thousand light years away, identified their ages and concluded that perhaps they were relations, or even training partners as Ra's databanks had shown that Jaffa society had Master-Apprentice roles in learning the arts of war.

The controller also heard their conversation. _Perhaps some cultural nuances could be deduced from it_ the Terran thought. Ra's databanks were rather thorough on the Goa'uld Feudal Empire, but not so much from a pure cultural standpoint. And the anthropologists had been hounding him lately to get a sneak peak into Jaffa culture. So he tasked a single drone to keep an eye and ear on the pair, and sent the rest of the swarm to begin gathering intelligence.

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So began a long day of tiring training for Teal'C. Starting with the simple thirty minute walk away from the Chappa'ai, by the time they arrived at a clearing on top of a hill overlooking the distant city, the boy was gasping for breath and spitting out thickened saliva.

'Fight through it, Teal'C,' Bratac advised as the boy bent over in exhaustion, 'if you wish to one day defeat Chronus in battle, then this is but a trifle exercise. Do you think Chronus would be encumbered at all in this realm? Hmmm.'

'No,' Teal'C shook his head.

'Wrong.'

'But he is a god…' Teal'C stuttered.

'A god who still has two legs and must walk in this realm as we do if he does not use a sky chariot. I could perhaps not endure as long as he could, but he would also eventually tire.'

'But…'

'He is in a mortal shell, Teal'C, and must suffer the same indignities we do,' snapped Bratac impatiently. 'Otherwise how would you ever expect to triumph, by just using Staff, Zat'nik'tel or blade? Hmmm?'

Teal'C stood upright and nodded. 'So I must defeat his armies, his shell, and in his shame he can never manifest again?'

'That is one way to achieve the goal you have set yourself,' conceded Bratac. 'Now let's get to work on your basic fighting arts.'

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The Terran Intelligence specialist listening to the conversation grew steadily intrigued as the day progressed. He had identified all the primary targets within the first hour, and now sat listening to an age old tradition of Master instructing pupil.

The microdrone had not only picked up a good angle on their faces, but voice analysis and scans of blood flow in certain centres of the older Jaffa's brain showed that he was not content with his lot – yes he was happy instructing his apprentice, but the moment that the boy mentioned something regarding the 'divinity' of the Goa'uld, the Master had a surge of agitation and frustration.

The overall objective seemed to be to train the kid in the high G of the moon designated 'M12-001' or as Ra's databanks called it Ramu-Yun. Such training was not a new idea, Terran Legionnaires had been doing it for centuries, and so had the three Star Empires before that. However, the specialist could see another objective the older Jaffa had…

He red flagged both Jaffa known as Bratac and Teal'C. Legion Command had been looking for sen-int assets that could be recruited from within the Jaffa of Apophis…perhaps this was one of the first. It wouldn't take much; a tour of the homeworld would do it. Ra was still in custody, and if that didn't prove to the young boy that the Goa'uld were not gods, then nothing would.

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The following morning both Bratac and Teal'C were still on Ramu-Yun. The boy had been absolutely exhausted and would not, Jaffa constitution or not, be able to take the strain of the journey back to the Chappa'ai. Bratac had not chosen the training spot idly. He had several days before secreted provisions not ten feet away from the tree line of the clearing. They had struck a fire for heat and settled down for the night, the boy falling asleep the moment his head hit the soft grass.

The first explosions were what woke them.

Bratac genuflected to his feet, his staff charged, aiming, scanning for targets in the very early morning air. His apprentice had also awoken to the explosion and struggled valiantly to his feet, his Zat'nik'tel primed and aiming…but there were no targets, no enemy.

At least not on the ground.

From their vantage point, the two could see the light from the gas planet, reflecting eerily off of small ships the like of which Bratac had never seen before. Their shapes were spherical at first glance but a closer look showed them to be more complex than that, with too many sides to count or see from this distance. He counted at least a dozen of them at a single glance. The only hint that the air gave of their movement was the booming noise when they exceeded the speed of sound in the atmosphere. He judged their size to be no bigger than the maw of the Chappa'ai…meaning they had come through it, thereby avoiding the orbital patrol of five Ha'tak motherships.

They buzzed like angry bees around the city and sent beams of blue light directly into all the Guard towers simultaneously, the explosions as the staff cannons within were destroyed were deafening in intensity, even at this distance. And just like that the slave city was vulnerable. But the alien sphere ships were not finished; again they grouped and delivered multiple energy beam blasts to a single point inside the city…their colour had changed to green energy.

The Pyramid which housed the Jaffa garrison simply vanished with a flash of white light, and was gone.

'Master…' the young Teal'C had latched onto his Master in fear, and for once Bratac could not find it in himself to object. A single beam from one of the ships struck the main city gate and reduced it to nothing more than wooden kindling.

Orange staff blasts from the remaining Jaffa in the city began to pepper the sky, but Bratac knew it would be futile. The sphere ships who were hit didn't even seem to register any damage; clearly the small craft were shielded as well. He now counted them as being actually twenty four in number, and they responded, thin pin point beams lanced out from their surfaces into the city, and the staff weapons fired no more.

Twelve of the ships shot up into the sky in a near perfect demonstration of formation flying and soon disappeared from view into orbit, Bratac wondered if those small things could take on all the Ha'taks at once. His answer came two minutes later when a small brief sun appeared in the early morning sky.

The high pitched sounds of Death Gliders launched from the Ha'tak's soon reached their ears, and their arrival was punctuated by the fiery death of another Ha'tak in orbit. The twelve sphere ships suddenly split into six teams of two and easily outmanoeuvred their opponents, being able to change direction on a moments notice on any axis. Green beams lanced out and just like the pyramid, the Gliders vanished into nothingness the moment any were hit.

Bratac held hope that a Glider cannon hit might make more of an impression on the alien ships, but again, the shields of the spheres held. By the time the aerial battle was over the three remaining Ha'taks in orbit had also been destroyed. The alien spheres returned and settled to hover protectively over the slave city, except for one…which broke off from its group and was…heading this way!

'Run!' barked Bratac, but he knew Teal'C would not be able to keep up with him, and with the speed those sphere ships had, it was stupid to think that he could outrun it in time to find cover.

The two had barely made it into the tree line, when the sphere ship was overhead, suddenly Bratac found himself enveloped in a cocoon of white energy, which abruptly shrunk and engulfed his vision…there was whiteness…then he knew no more…

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Bratac felt himself return to consciousness an indeterminate time later. _Not dead at least_, he thought. The first thing he felt was that he was stripped of all his armour, weapons, clothes, and been dressed in soft trousers, and a slightly oversized long-sleeved shirt. He also felt that he was encased in warm fabrics and seemed to be lying on a bed softer and more comfortable than he had ever experienced. He focused on what his ears told him next and could hear nothing but a slight humming singing through the air. The smell of that air was…clean, no natural pollutants like plant spores…he was clearly in an artificial environment, perhaps a ship, not on one of the sphere ships, since they were too small.

He understood that the aliens must have taken him in a similar manner to a Ring transport, but they obviously didn't need physical rings to surround the person being transported, and could simply snatch you unwillingly away. That also meant they were more powerful than the Goa'uld, perhaps the Asgard had attacked for some reason…but in Jaffa legends Asgard ships didn't need to use a Chappa'ai, they just appeared out of nowhere over a planet in their hammer shaped ships and swatted Ha'tak's out of space with impunity, before simply vanishing things with bright beams of white light that came out of nowhere, if the stories were accurate.

These were clearly different aliens, who had somehow found offence at the Goa'uld, which was rather a common thing. Bratac did not know of a single species in the Galaxy that liked the false gods, come to think of it. Yet some of their behaviour puzzled him; the protectiveness the sphere ships had shown over the slave city, and the fact that he was still alive in a very comfortable position and had not met the same fate as the Jaffa garrison, and the precision of the attacks.

His thoughts turned to Teal'C and he hoped that his young apprentice had been spared as he had. Finally, he could not ignore his curiosity any longer and cracked open an eye by a mere fraction, taking in his surroundings.

He was by all appearances in a luxurious dwelling, with attractive yet steadily changing images in frames – showing land and seascapes - on the polished soft brown walls, that seemed to be a metal and yet not, there was an organic quality to it. The floors were covered in rather familiar tapestries, the design of which reminded him of his own home on Chulak. The room was also large, but there were no signs of a window and only one door.

It was then that he heard a rustling of cloth to his left, and a familiar voice moaning about something in his sleep. Bratac forewent caution, sat upright and turned towards the sound. In a bed not a few paces away was Teal'C.

He let out a breath of relief that he didn't know he had been holding. He pushed the covers off cautiously and padded over to the dozing boy.

'Teal'C! Up!' he said in a harsh whisper, nudging his apprentice.

'Mother…' said the boy, half awake now, 'Just a little more sleep…'

'I am not your mother, up!'

Teal'C's eyes snapped open, locked them with the gaze of his Master, intelligence and memory crept into his features. The boy gasped and bolted upright, regarding his white clothing for a moment, so stark contrasting against his dark skin, and jumped out of the bed, turning his head side to side so fast, that Bratac was worried the boy might undo his own neck.

'Master, where are we?!'

'Keep your voice down,' admonished Bratac. 'I do not know. I have just awoken myself, but clearly we are not on Ramu-Yun anymore. Perhaps in the alien's mothership or their planet, the latter more likely given the nature of this dwelling.'

'Why did they take us?'

'We were spared perhaps because they need information, on Apophis.'

'But we will tell them nothing of our god, right Master?'

Bratac sighed and wished it could be so easy. At best they could expect imprisonment, at worst various tortures…though with the power these aliens had…he shuddered to think what methods they had at their disposal. Their comfortable surroundings could just be that, a prelude to let them relax and lower their guard before they would abruptly be taken for interrogation.

'We might have no choice about the matter, apprentice. You are too young to fully know the ways in which an enemy can gain information from us, none of them are pleasant. I'm at least grateful to know that it was not another Goa'uld that has captured us…for I have no wish to expose you to such methods.' Bratac visibly winced to convey the gravity of the situation, and the display of emotion was enough to shock his apprentice into stillness.

There was an abrupt hissing sound from the door to the room. Bratac whirled to face it and pushed the boy behind him, who tried to squirm out of his grip to see what was coming. The older Jaffa would have none of it, and kept Teal'C solidly out of sight. The door seemed to shimmer into nothingness, and revealed a brightly lit corridor…standing in the threshold was a curvy…female like figure, backlit by the brightness. It entered the room and the door reappeared returning the light to previous levels.

When Bratac's eyes adjusted, he simply blinked, and shook his head to clear it. No difference.

It was a woman, a fair skinned _human_ woman, almost a foot taller than he was. Her long auburn hair draped naturally to her shoulders, and hazel eyes that stared and analyzed them with a frightening intelligence, they were also…_old eyes_…Bratac had seen them only in hale Jaffa warriors nearing the end of their life. Yet, this woman, still looked in the prime of her life. It was a vitality that was daringly displayed for she wore no clothes, except for a few trinkets of jewellery – a necklace whose pendant hung in the valley of her petite bosom, and two ornate bracelets on either wrist.

The shock of the sight, caused Bratac to relax his grip slightly on Teal'C and the boy finally managed to see their visitor. There was a gasp, and the boy promptly hid behind his Master again.

The woman's eyes lost some of that harsh oldness, and a twinkle of amusement entered them, no doubt because of his apprentice' reaction. Teal'C was still in that awkward stage of youth where a boy was transitioning to leaving the fear of womanhood behind and moving toward seeking it out. Teal'C had only received his first symbiote six months earlier when he reached the age of Prata.

'_**Greetings, on behalf of the **_Terran_** Commonality, I welcome you to our home,**_' she spoke Goa'uld in a fluent, near melodic tone. It made the normally guttural language sound rather pleasing. _**'I am…Scholar Serena.**_ _**And I'm here to guide you during your stay with us**_.'

Bratac dismissed the initial notion he had that she was a slave to the aliens, and that they had attacked merely over possession of the humans on Ramu-Yun. Perhaps her world was one of the relatively rare free human worlds the Goa'uld had forgotten or abandoned, and had entered into an alliance with the aliens…but her eyes…those hazel eyes, told a different story, her bearing told a different story. And it was as she twisted her palm and there was a small flash of light in it, and a device of some sort appeared that he realized…she was free. A free, _powerful_, human. Not a slave.

'_**May I have the honour of knowing your names?**_'

After a moment of hesitation and seeing now reason not to, _**"I am Master Bratac of Chulak, behind me is my apprentice, Teal'C of Chulak.'**_

'_**Well, Master Bratac, Teal'C, it's a pleasure to meet you both**_,' the Scholar smiled and Bratac saw no lie again, she _really _was pleased.

'_**Was it your people who attacked?**_'

She only nodded.

'_**Why?**_' Bratac probed.

'_**Do we need any more reason than the real and mental enslavement of our cousins by the Goa'uld, all across the Galaxy? Not to mention the atrocities and wiping out of entire civilizations.**_' The Scholar's eyes became frigid.

'_**No, you do not,**_' conceded Bratac, lowering his own head as he felt the guilt anew for every innocent slaughtered at the end of his own staff weapon.

'_**Before we get to the reason we abducted you,'**_ the Scholar's tone was now more sympathetic,_** 'I need to give you a medical scan, to see if you can safely leave this room. I realize that as a Jaffa, you are protected from most diseases but…let's just say we prefer to be cautious.'**_

She held up the device that had somehow appeared in her hand. Bratac carefully studied her eyes again before nodding, stepping away from Teal'C but keeping a firm hand on the boys arm. He felt the young one tensing as if readying to strike, but he gave Teal'C a gimlet eye and shook his head to stop him from acting rashly.

The Scholar stepped within arm's reach and hovered the flat device over them; it had flashing lights of various colours and displayed things in an unknown script to her. It took barely a few seconds and she nodded in satisfaction. _**'You'll be fine. Please come with me.'**_

The device vanished from her hand with another flash of white light and she walked towards the door that shimmered away again into nothingness.

Bratac, with his arm around Teal'C's small shoulders, followed in her wake.

They emerged into a white featureless corridor; the only thing that broke its monotony was the occasional door with script, probably numbers, and a form of glowing panel next to each. They would also occasionally pass another human (also lacking clothes) going about their daily business; they would nod in recognition to the Scholar, and give a smiling bow to Bratac and Teal'C. At one point they passed an elderly human, staring into a portable device of sort, and reading it…he was hardly good looking, yet also had no clothes…ah_, so it's a societal characteristic_.

'_**Might I ask…why your people have no coverings?**_'

'_**That's no short answer to that**_,' the Scholar grinned as they approached what looked to be a form of conveyance within whatever structure they were – which must be enormous to boast such a transport – although with their remote transport capability, he wondered why they just didn't use that. The conveyance was capable of seating a dozen passengers. The Scholar only began to answer when the conveyance began to move along its tube, silently and at great speed.

'_**One reason for it, is simple, we don't need the practical comforts clothes gives, our technology is not only around us, but within us, allowing us to adapt. I could walk in frigid temperatures and not so much as get a shiver, just as I could walk in a soaring hot desert and not get burned by the sun or the earth under my feet.**_'

'_**What of storms and other such extremes?'**_ Bratac enquired, trying to wrap his mind around it.

'_**We would stay indoors, or if it was really necessary, simply project a personal shield around our body.**_' She shrugged. '_**Another reason is because our society as a whole wanted to get rid of the class distinctions that are associated with wearing clothing. It is also the embodiment of one of our ancient philosopher's idea of a utopian society – one in which nudity is commonplace and accepted. It's been eight hundred years since it was adopted and no one's seen a reason to stop.'**_

The conveyance finally came to a stop and Bratac judged that they had travelled a distance which would have taken half an hour to walk at a brisk pace. A voice speaking in an unfamiliar tongue suddenly spoke from out of nowhere, enough to make young Teal'C startle and look for whoever it was.

'_**It's just the carriage wishing us a good day,**_' Scholar Serena explained with a grin and led the way out.

They entered an area that was bustling with more 'Terrans' who was waiting to use the conveyances and when the door to this 'terminal' opened and they found themselves entering what could only be an airlock. It made Bratac realize that they were still somehow in space…but a ship that big! He gave a glance at Teal'C, and saw that the young boy was valiantly trying to control his own apprehension and fear.

Surely the Scholar wouldn't flush them out into space with herself?

'_**We're nearly at our destination**_,' reassured the Scholar with a nod. The outer door opened and Bratac found himself looking at the familiar darkness of space, through a huge window that was curved in a bowl shape. That a transparent material of such strength could be made by the Terrans was…amazing. No false god could ever think or design such a thing.

Though the stars had to be shining, their light adapted eyes couldn't see them beyond the great window. Serena led them into the room beyond which she called an 'Observation Deck'.

She then pointed to something beyond it. It spanned the whole height of the window and continued out of sight above and below, it seemed to be a thread of light, and was extremely thin, so thin that Bratac wondered if it even had width. The line of light had barely visible spots of greater brilliance at irregular intervals along its length.

Bratac and Teal'C walked forward and the view expanded and they could see below. It was a jewel of a planet; with huge white cloud banks, and just pure Blue Ocean as far as the eye could see. _So we're in orbit_, thought Bratac. It was clearly a gigantic station of a sort.

'Go closer to the window, Master Bratac, and look down; I hope you are not afraid of heights?'

'My Master is master of his fear,' Teal'C said with utter childish confidence. Serena chuckled and gestured to the window again. Bratac shook his head, suppressing his grin, and stepped within arms reach, both him and his apprentice looking down…

The sight was enough to force a string of epithets from Bratac that he had not used since he was in Prata, taking an involuntary step back. Teal'C had simply gasped and fallen back on his behind, as if to reassure himself that there was a solid floor.

Bratac steeled himself and stepped forward again…only now comprehending the sight. He was looking down at the distant giant ocean of the Terran homeworld at a height of sixty thousand paces, from the face of a cylindrical tower, with a diameter he judged at about seven thousand paces! But that was nothing compared to its length, for it went down, down, down, until it disappeared into the mists of the clouds below. He assumed that it continued all the way down the surface and into the ocean, down to the ocean floor as well.

It was stupendous, it was insane…that something like this could be built, and yet here he was, standing in what had to be largest artificial structure in the entire Galaxy!

'_**Look upwards now,'**_ Serena invited. He did and saw that the Tower dwindled away until it became a scintillating thread against the blackness of space. _**'It continues all the way up to geostationary orbit, where it meets the Halo. We are currently in **_Pacifica_** Tower, named after the Ocean in which it's anchored.**_' She pointed to the distant thread. '_**That is another one, **_America_** Tower, there are two more, **_Africa_** and **_Asia_**. And are all equally spaced around the Equator of Terra and linked together by the Halo.'**_

'_**Your people built this?**_' Bratac turned to her intently.

'_**It took a few hundred years, but yes,**_' she nodded simply.

'_**Do you claim to be gods?'**_

'_**No.**_' Her tone was forbidding and final.

Bratac rounded on a stunned Teal'C and barked. '_**You see? Hmm! Apophis cannot even comprehend the idea of creating a place such as this. You still think him a god after what we saw yesterday and now this?**_'

'_**Master Bratac, he is just a child…**_'

'_**And as such he must be taught**_,' countered Bratac, looking expectantly at the boy, who was frowning mightily, but he could see the fear in those eyes.

'_**H-how can mortals make things such as this?'**_ Teal'C closed his eyes, and shook his head partly in disbelief and in desperation.

'_**Through the labours of every generation, building upon each other, child,'**_ Serena said with a comforting tone. _**'Come I have something else to show you.'**_

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After another ride in a tube conveyance and a brief walk, they went through another double airlock to another part of the exterior wall of Pacifica Tower, and entered what looked to be a small viewing theatre, or hall. Rows of seats were arrayed in five levels; they all faced towards another of those huge viewing windows. There were two dozen or so other passengers, who seemed to recognize them at a glance, and nodding politely returned to the view.

Bratac shook his head, _'To think I am in a giant moving room.' _Another automated voice emerged and Serena translated_**, 'Welcome to Skylounge. Ascent begins in five minutes. You will find refreshments and toilets on the lower floor.**_' When the three of them had found seating, he finally asked. _**'You have instant remote transportation, why do you not avail yourselves of that?'**_

'_**The systems for that are there**_,' nodded Serena. '_**But we only use it in emergencies or for tactical purposes in battle. Despite the fact that we've had it for about nine hundred years, some people are still leery about using it. And speaking for myself, I enjoy the time any journey naturally takes…you never know what you might discover along the way.**_'

The giant conveyance hardly seemed to be moving at all, when it announced they were moving. It was only five minutes later that Bratac could see the view had greatly expanded of the planet. It clearly had a means of stopping the effects of acceleration, just like a Death Glider had.

Half an hour later, they stepped off the Skylounge at the Halo level. When he and Teal'C finally got a good look at it from another window…it was almost too much to comprehend. As wide as the tower was, this was the width of a giant curving platform that went on and on, until it curved out of view, becoming as thin as a thread, and tracing a line right around the planet.

On the outer surface of the Halo, were shipyards, docks, spaceports, clusters of giant buildings everywhere. Then there were the Terran ships themselves; the smallest being one-man shuttles that flitted about with manoeuvrability and speeds just like the Sphere ships had, moving to and fro on their destinations, to an absolute behemoth of a starship…it was a Ha'tak multiplied three fold in mass and size, shaped with organic lines that belied its metallic nature. It had a large central body which seamlessly sprouted two thick wing hull segments to either side. Each wing split into two that curved upwards and around to almost encapsulate the main body of the ship. All this combined with its gleaming dark silver hull that occasionally had flowing sections of silvery blue was both beautiful and yet gave an ominous feeling of a ship that was a born predator. It was an odd dichotomy.

'That is a Terran battlecruiser,' Serena said neutrally, looking faintly disapproving at the sight of it.

Then there was the wonder on the inner side of the Halo, it was perfectly covered with yet more of that fantastically strong transparent material, and within was…trees, grass, land, lakes, and entire world constructed out of the vast emptiness of space.

Another conveyance ride of ten minutes along the outer surface of the Halo brought them to a vast dome building half the width of the surface. Which they entered after the conveyance stopped at the inner terminal. Here for the first time, Bratac saw somewhat familiar surroundings, looking from a military point of view.

Two Terrans, a male and female, both looking extremely martial with their defined bodies, and gauntlets on each arm, surveyed them briefly, then looking at Serena, nodded at her, and allowed them to proceed through the main entrance. The Terrans they encountered here were clearly warriors; Bratac could see that clearly without needing the Scholar's explanation.

He idly wondered how he would fare in a friendly sparring match against them…perhaps it could be explored later.

'_**We are in one of the Exploration and Survey Agency's buildings (ESA). This is where we keep the Stargate,'**_ Serena paused at a window, and gestured for them to take a look. And there it was indeed, standing peacefully at one end of a large circular room a hundred paces in diameter beyond the window. The Stargate was held upright in vices of a glowing blue metal that seemed to been moulded around it in four places, and 'grew' out of the glistening white floor that gave the entire 'Stargate Room' an eerie quality with the light it projected.

'_**Where are the defences?'**_ Bratac wondered, for he could see no armament emplacements anywhere facing the Gate, it was an empty room otherwise.

'_**They're there, but hidden from sight,**_' the Scholar explained.

'_**How did you get the Sphere ships in here? I see no place for storage nor…**_'

'_**The ships we used to attack Ramu-Yun are either remote transported, (we use the term 'Displaced') into the Embarkation Room, or the ceiling opens to space, and allows them to fly in.**_'

'_**And doubles as another means of defence, should your security be breached**_,' Bratac deduced. It was very smart, and promised a most unpleasant death for anyone stupid enough to invade through the Terran Stargate and gain a modicum of success. '_**Although you could just achieve the same with your displacement technology in an instant, without bothering with the roof.**_'

She nodded uncomfortably. '_**And incidentally, those ships are known as**_ 'Icodrons' _**after their true shape –**_ Truncated Icosahedron.' Bratac only looked quizzically at her; the terms meant nothing to him. _**'Sorry, but there's no word in Goa'uld for the shape I'm talking about. The ships are thirty-two sided.**_'

They next headed into a nearby closet sized room; doors abruptly closed behind them and after a moment of waiting began to descend silently, deeper into the building. Bratac counted the lift moving twenty levels before the doors opened again. The Scholar led them down a long wide hallway; on either side were wide empty rooms. Each had a hard bed; water and waste dispenser…clearly prison cells. Yet there were no bars. It was only when he neared the end of the hallway that he understood why.

The prison cell here was occupied, and at the threshold between the room and hallway was a flaring red field of energy. Its occupant stared at them with malice…Bratac initially thought it was just a young man dressed in single piece of clothing, but then he caught the details of that face…and was shocked into gasping.

"_**Say hello to the almighty Supreme System Lord Ra**_," Serena said wryly.

Ra's eyes glowed in anger and spoke to the Scholar. _**"So you have attacked Apophis, and bring his First Prime before me as proof.**_"

"_**He was rather belligerent at first, kept pounding away at the force field,**_" Scholar Serena commented ignoring Ra completely. "_**We would've removed it from its host, but our tests determined that after more than ten thousand years, the boy that Ra possessed would be incurably insane. We also have to put him every week into a Sarcophagus, to prevent deterioration. Until we get everything out of it, at least .**_"

"_**You will all die for this! I will burn your world…"**_ Ra's next words were cut off, yet he continued visibly shouting at them.

"_**What happened**_?" Bratac asked finally.

"_**The force field can be altered to stop sound from permeating through it**_," Serena replied. _**"I've personally grown rather weary of his pathetic threats**_." The Terran turned to Teal'C. "_**Does this finally convince you, young one? There is the Supreme System Lord…caged, powerless, nothing but a parasite in a young man's body**_."

Bratac looked at Teal'C and could clearly see the doubt in the lad's eyes now, and finally the young Jaffa nodded.

"_**Good, we Terrans deplored having to take the lives of your fellow Jaffa on Ramu-Yun, they are as much in bondage to the Goa'uld as the humans of this Galaxy. Please understand that we do not relish the coming War, as undoubtedly it will lead to many more sentients dying**_."

"_**I understand and respect your position,"**_ Bratac bowed sensing the sincerity in the woman's words. "_**But you have yet to answer my earlier question, why did you abduct us**_?"

She walked away from the cell and gestured for them to follow down the corridor. "_**We wish to recruit you.**_"

"_**Recruit?**_" Bratac was stunned. "_**What ever for? With all your power…"**_

"_**But winning hearts and minds is another matter,**_" the Scholar explained as they stepped back into the lift.

"_**You wish me to convert my fellow Jaffa away from the false gods?"**_ Bratac deduced quickly.

"_**Yes, when the opportunity presents itself. Is that something you want?**_"

Bratac wanted it, oh yes, for his people to free themselves by following his example. He could only nod.

"_**We're also hoping that with our 'power' to back you up, that your case would be much stronger. You would be assigned to one of our major exploration and combat teams that are going to be sent through the Stargate on a continuous basis, perhaps acting as a 'Guide' whenever possible. You've surely seen a lot of this big Galaxy?**_"

"_**Indeed, relatively speaking**_."

Serena nodded in understanding at his point, there were obvious limits to his knowledge; firstly he had reasonable knowledge of the Goa'uld Empire, to a point, after all the false gods did not trust the Jaffa with everything. His knowledge was also limited to the Stargate network, as the Goa'uld didn't use their Ha'tak for anything other than war.

"_**Nevertheless, we still need your help. Helping you to throw the yoke from the Jaffa, will throw the yoke from our younger cousins all over the Galaxy**_."

"_**Why do you call all the humans that?"**_ Bratac asked in puzzlement.

"_**Because that's what they are, do you know the story of how the first human host was taken by Ra?"**_

"_**The tale is of a primitive world the Goa'uld discovered millennia ago. The Tau'ri. First World where forms of this type evolved. It is said the Goa'uld harvested among the primitives, some became Goa'uld hosts, others became Jaffa; the rest were taken as slaves and seeded among the stars to serve them. But that world has been lost for centuries**_."

"_**Bratac, beings of this form, evolved here on **_Terra."

Bratac felt himself stunned again. _**"Truly? This world? You are the Tau'ri?"**_

"_**Yes, our ancestors rebelled and drove Ra and the other Goa'uld off from our world, and buried the Stargate to prevent their return. It's only seven years ago that we rediscovered the Gate, buried in the sands of our central continent, Africa."**_

"_**Then you are humanity's greatest hope. And mine.'**_

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Master Bratac of Chulak hardly imagined when agreed to give his allegiance to the Tau'ri, that this would be the result. Yet here he was a few days later, standing inside a house easily triple the size of the one he owned on Chulak. He had not chosen it out of sudden greed for the plenty he was suddenly given, but rather because it was one of the smallest the Tau'ri had offered. He had no idea what form resources the Tau'ri used and how they accounted for things, but he suspected that it was not something he would easily comprehend.

His new house was on the inner ring of the Halo, barely a thousand paces from the ESA. It had twelve rooms of various functions, from bathing, food preparation, to separate sleeping rooms for both him and Teal'C. The furnishings and various 'appliances' for daily living had been carefully explained by Scholar Serena. Most of which defied belief. In fact, most of them needed no input at all to function. The house was cleaned by tiny intelligent 'Microts' that reminded Bratac of mice in terms of size and even appearance – that alone cut down on more than half the work a household required. And a lot of it could function with just simple voice commands.

Food was provided by the house itself, there was a wondrous device that could simply make whatever he wanted out of thin air…although Serena stressed that that was not the case and pure energy was used, then converted into base foodstuffs, which in turn was 'nanoassembled' into whatever form of food you desired. The same device could make clothes.

But despite all the technological wonders of the house itself, the view from it was simply spectacular. It was surrounded by a lush landscape of green grass, trees, and not two hundred paces away was a lake of crystal clear blue water. The sky above was of course dominated by view of the Tau'ri homeworld surrounded by the inky blackness of space, and you could see the curve of the Halo going on and on into the distance in both directions.

'_This_ is our new home?' Teal'C inquired in astonishment, and then grimaced, removing from his head the new interface device or 'Braincap' with which both he and Bratac had been fitted. It looked like a silvery metallic version of the Jaffa skull cap and essentially turned their thoughts directly into signals understandable to the technology around them…the Tau'ri had no need for them, since they seemingly had a similar and smaller device inside them which performed the same function. Unfortunately for Teal'C, it required that all the boy's hair be removed…something that shouldn't have happened until he finished his apprenticeship.

'It would seem so, until it is safe for you to return to your mother. Or she can be convinced to come here.'

Bratac wished it could be different, but the truth was that if any System Lord or Apophis learned that they had been on Yamu-Run and survived, they wouldn't hesitate to grab either of them and torture them for the knowledge of what had transpired there.

For the Tau'ri had apparently applied their technology to the Yamu-Run Stargate to stop unauthorized travellers from coming through. They had also deployed a defence grid around the planet that could detect incoming ships for a hundred light years in every direction and destroy the inbound ships the moment they exited hyperspace near the planet, before they could even raise their shields. Already another two Ha'tak had been reduced to nothing but debris and numerous attempts by the Goa'uld to discover what happened through the Stargate had been repulsed.

'_**We're creating a Black Hole of information, Apophis has already lost seven Ha'taks to Ramu-Yun alone, none of his scouts he's sending through the Stargate are returning,**_" Serena had explained. '_**He will eventually send one of those cloaked scout ships, Tel'tak, I think they're called – which we'll disable and capture. We intend to bleed him until he either gives up on securing Ramu-Yun again, or if he tries to come himself…well then he dies.**_'

Bratac had of course, told Teal'C's mother, where he was going with the boy, and when word would filter down through the Jaffa ranks and society, Apophis would eventually hear of the 'death' of his First Prime and his apprentice on Ramu-Yun. Therefore, if Teal'C suddenly showed up back on Chulak…it wouldn't take long for word to reach the serpent god. It pained Bratac to do it, but there was no choice in the matter. Teal'C would have to remain here in the heart of Tau'ri space.

He would continue to train the boy, and raise him as he would've been on Chulak. During times when Bratac was away, Scholar Serena had volunteered to look after him and see to giving Teal'C an education appropriately modified to fit his needs. When Bratac asked if Serena could afford the time required, she laughed and gave another piece of information that shocked him about the Tau'ri.

'_**I've already been a mother to twelve children over a span of two hundred years; it will be nice to put those skills to use again**_. _**I also don't have to be in a particular location to do my work either, since its academic research**_.'

Their typical natural lifespan was almost four times that of a Jaffa and Serena herself was three hundred and ninety years old. It finally explained the 'old eyes' she possessed.

Bratac grinned at the youth. "Now get yourself settled, I will have a busy month ahead of me." Teal'C nodded and dashed upstairs.

Whilst Teal'C would be starting under the tutorship of Serena, Bratac would be undergoing an 'Evaluation and Training'. It essentially meant that his combat fitness was going to be tested according to Tau'ri standards, and he would be trained in the use of some of their technology he was certain to see and use in the field with one of their most experienced Exploration and Survey teams. Speaking of which, the team he was being assigned to was due to arrive at his new home at the end of the day.

He had no idea what passed for hospitality among Terrans, but he resolved to be as gracious as when inviting a fellow Jaffa into his home. This was easier said than done.

He had to enter into literal verbal battle with the Food Constructor. He knew better than to try to use his thoughts as he still had to receive proper training to use the Braincap in such a fashion. The bland, male voice of the Constructor kept asking for more specifics (thank goodness it had been programmed to understand Goa'uld). For example, _**"I want a large loaf of bread."**_

"_**Please specify size.**_"

"_**Large, about a pace."**_

"_**What form of flour, whole grain, white…"**_

"_**Whole grain!"**_

"_**Do you wish any form of additive?"**_

"_**No."**_

"_**Do you have any decorative requirements?"**_

Suffice it to say that things had deteriorated rapidly from there. Teal'C had eventually come down from organizing his own room to watch his master in a verbal battle with the Tau'ri device, and was barely succeeding in hiding his own amusement. Finally, after twenty minutes of argument with the Constructor; the large box like recess in one side of the kitchen walls, hummed to life with a sparkly glow, and when it was done…there was a steaming hot loaf of bread as if just taken from the oven kiln.

"_**Success, at last, you infernal machine!"**_ growled Bratac, snatching the loaf out of the Constructor, just in case the thing decided to deconstruct it for some unknown reason.

Teal'C could not take it anymore, discipline be damned, and fell to the floor literally pounding it in laughter. Bratac whirled on his apprentice, so intent was he on his argument that he had not even noticed the boy enter. _Are you back in Prata, Jaffa?_ He cursed himself, putting the prize of his victory on the kitchen table, and gave his apprentice a beady eye.

Teal'C saw this and tried to calm himself, but snorts of laughter kept escaping him.

"_**Sorry, Master…he he, I'm…hic…sorry."**_

"_**Just for that, you will do battle with this machine for the drinks."**_

"_**Master!"**_

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When the chime echoed through the house and the time for guests had arrived. Bratac placed his hand against the panel next to the front door, which promptly shimmered into nothingness and revealed Serena standing a pace away, with another six Terrans behind her.

"_**Good day, Master Bratac,"**_ Serena bowed her head slightly. _**"May I have the pleasure of introducing you to your new team, designated ES1…"**_

Bratac listened carefully as she imparted the names and specialities of each Terran.

"_**Welcome to my home, such as it is,"**_ he bowed to them. They promptly and respectfully returned it. And as they entered, Bratac wondered if these were the faces that would help him find the freedom he dreamed of for his people.

Time…

Only time would tell.

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_A/N: Sorry, couldn't resist that cliffy folks. But I wanted to create some anticipation for you. _


	4. Chapter 4 Thor

**Chapter 4**** - Thor**

**Stargate Embarkation, ****ES Agency, Halo, Terra**

Jana stood next to her recently expanded team, and watched through the observation windows as another Infiltrator team, all of Asian descent, dressed in traditional Mongol clothes stepped through the event horizon of the Stargate.

"What's that make now? The third Infiltrator team to leave and none yet for any ES teams," Emily groused.

"Fourth," Jana shook her head, and turned to Bratac. The Jaffa was wearing a rather snug blue skinsuit with integrated combat boots that fit him like a glove. The skinsuit was old technology, from a time when personal shields were still rather skittish inventions and prone to malfunction. It had an artificial intelligence built into it that would use all a manner of its various functions to protect its wearer from all hazards faster than Bratac could process it even happening. "Are all the planets out there filled with humans not even beyond Stage 1?"

"Of the planets the Goa'uld seeded with humans and abandoned…very few will rise to what you consider appropriate for full contact," Bratac explained, speaking in Terran Latin – it was amazing to think that he had learned an entire new language in under two days after it had been 'downloaded' into his brain. "The Goa'uld would from time to time return to make sure that the societies don't evolve to become a threat to their power. As a result most societies you will meet; will be what you call Stage 1 or 2. Some few will reach 3 and even 4, but that is the point where any Goa'uld would step in. You will only find Stage 5 Spacefaring and beyond in the far outer reaches of the Galaxy where the Goa'uld have no territory."

"_Culus_ snakes," cussed Dante with a scowl.

Jana was about to remonstrate him for his language when she felt a mental link from ES Command. Everyone, even Bratac with the aid of his Braincap, felt it happening. Finally, she emerged and grinned at her team. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a mission."

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Jana's ES team stood in a large circular room, in the centre a truly massive holographic rendering of the Galaxy hovered in mid air. After waiting for the doors to materialize behind them, she guided her team to the pair of figures conversing in hushed tones with each other at the perimeter of the room that served as Command Information and Control (CIC) for the ESA.

One was a truly imposing man, standing at seven feet tall, extremely well built and he had no hair on his head. Bratac felt for the first time in his life, rather small, compared to this giant of a man. This was the Third Space Marshall of the Terran Fleet, Michael Dimitroff. A native of Cignus Eridani IV, a planet twelve light years from Terra. The planet had low gravity, so Terrans born there tended to be very tall and gangly, but usually bioformed themselves to be able to withstand higher gravities…the result being Dimitroff's impressive size and physique.

Standing next to him, looking rather dwarfed in comparison was the five foot five Director of the ES Agency, Delphia Gelner. Her position as Director was only outwardly shown by the fact that her DS bracelets were more ornate and covered both forearms, whilst similar ornate halfmoon decorations supported her breasts, but could be seen through. She also wore much smaller bracelets around her upper biceps, and a necklace with three halfmoons arrayed in a pendant. Her long auburn hair spilled past her shoulders, which practically glistened. To Bratac's eyes she looked practically like royalty, compared to Dimitroff who only had the DS bracelets around his wrists.

"Have the Medical teams reached any conclusions on that last planet we surveyed?" Dimitroff's stern voice asked.

"Yes," Director Gelner's melodic, almost child-like voice answered in sharp contrast. "P3X-797, quite fascinating, the planet is locked in a permanent light and day side. The disease the Infiltrators reported in the Bronze Age culture there was rather simple to cure – it fed off histamine in the blood of its hosts, in the process suppressing the higher reasoning centres of the brain. We've briefed the Infiltrators and issued strong doses of antihistamines to them...they're busy administering it to the affected native human population with a suitable cover story and disguise as we speak."

"Good," nodded Dimitroff absently staring at the Galaxy map.

"Ah, Jana, ES1, welcome," Gelner turned to them.

"Director, Space Marshall," Jana bowed her head in greeting to them. The Legionnaires on ES1 saluted the Marshall with clenched right fists lightly hitting their chests near the left shoulder. Both Gelner and Dimitroff were now the ones in nominal charge of Terran affairs through the Stargate, with overall strategic decisions going to the Commonality as a whole.

"Greetings," Dimitroff returned the salute and then turned to Bratac. "Master Bratac, it's an honour to meet you finally in person."

Bratac had learned enough of Terran culture to reply properly, "The honour is mine, Space Marshall."

"The Director and I are looking forward to working with you in the future, your help and those of any other Jaffa you can convince will certainly speed the liberation of the Galaxy," Dimitroff continued.

"Such a task is something that could extend beyond the scope of my lifetime," Bratac could not help but feel ...as a mere babe...as he was speaking to the Space Marshall. In his research of who would command him, he had discovered that Dimitroff was truly _old_, he was one of the Elders of the Terrans, and his life spanned back more than a thousand years, born ninety years before the formation of the Commonality and he had fought in the War of the Three Great Star Empires.

"Perhaps," Dimitroff conceded, "but you never know. The true battle in war, at its most basic, is fought in the heart. With a few powerful events and appropriate examples we could ignite a fire of revolution that would burn the scourge of the Goa'uld from the Galaxy forever and in less time than you think. Yes...we would have to still fight a conventional military war, but it can't be our sole focus. Also, despite the power of the Commonality, the Galaxy is a big place...and we've learned that while self-reliance is something to be aspired to, that it can be self-defeating...in isolation any Race is weak. Therefore, to speed the demise of the Goa'uld we will need allies..."

"...our analysis of Ra's Ha'tak gave us some intelligence on a few Races that are out there that can contest the power of the Goa'uld," Director Gelner continued, "the most powerful of which is a Race the Goa'uld know as the Asgard." She gestured with her hand and the massive Galaxy hologram changed to show a symbol of a massive Hammer, which changed to show various seemingly hand drawn illustrations of a great host of ancient warriors and the greatest of which held a Hammer sheathed in lightning. "Interestingly enough, we've made a correlation between these Asgard and ancient Terran legends...indicating that they could've visited us in our past. In Norse mythology the gods were powerful warriors. Legend tells us that the god Thor was a friend to humans and protected them from the Etins, being of great power and knowledge who were enemies of mankind."

"I have seen the Hammer sign," Bratac stated. "It is the symbol of a world called Cimmeria. All Jaffa are taught the sequence of Stargate symbols to that world."

"Why Master Bratac?" Dimitroff asked knowingly.

"To ensure that no Goa'uld goes there. It is forbidden. Something transpired on Cimmeria that no Goa'uld will speak of."

"Sounds promising, perhaps these Asgard have an outpost on that world," Jana theorized.

"That is probable," agreed the Director. "We've referenced in the Ra's databanks a Treaty that the Goa'uld signed with the Asgard that protects certain worlds in the Milky Way from Goa'uld domination and influence." The massive hologram tank now changed to show the seven symbol Stargate address in question.

"That is Cimmeria," nodded Bratac in recognition.

"Although we have the list of these Protected Worlds, we will only be sending your team Jana to attempt to make first contact with the Asgard on Cimmeria...we will consider the others off-limits for now. I can imagine how I would react if some pesky alien race was to snoop around our own Protectorate Planets." Dimitroff explained matter-of-factly.

"While your team's primary objective will be to contact the Asgard and propose an alliance, you can also take the opportunity to scout the planet and observe its human population – adjust your approach depending on their level of development."

"You leave in two hours, may Deus walk with you."

Jana and the rest of ES1 alternately bowed and saluted their superiors and left CIC.

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**Cimmeria**

Jana emerged from the event horizon of the native Stargate and regarded the immediate area; they were close to a mountain range towards the north, and the clearing of green foliage and forest that surrounded them was quite small, clearly showing that the Gate was seldom used as no one felt the need to ease the passage towards the large device.

The Stargate and its CHD was emplaced however, on a small island of marble tiles and facing them directly was a huge obelisk-like edifice that a Microdrone had scanned as definitely being technological in nature. The Microdrone was itself scanned by the edifice, barely a few moments after it had come through the Gate. The scientists back on Terra were still puzzling on the data the drone had sent back about that scanning beam.

There were no native inhabitants around that had witnessed their arrival, Jana noted thankfully, as it would give them time to get their bearings.

The Stargate shut down as Anona was the last to come through.

"Matty, anything to report?"

The Synthetic Being hovered steadily next to Jana as his sensors probed the area.

"I have a fix on numerous human life signs in the general vicinity, but they are scattered into small homesteads. The greatest concentration is what has to be a village of a few hundred people about eight leuga to the west..." the SB trailed off and its field flared an alarmed red, "the scanning edifice it's powering up rapidly..."

Matty's sensors were confirmed by the audible and rather ominous humming that reached the team's ears. It came from the tip of the edifice where an ornate jewel-like emitter was set into its tip and it was starting to glow from within.

"Any ideas of what it's going to do?" Julius asked urgently, as he and everyone else materialized Defensive gauntlets around their arms and stared grimly at the humming edifice.

"Besides scan us...no...the technology I'm picking up inside is highly advanced...I'm gonna need more time to make sense..."

Matty was interrupted as a visible beam of light blue energy shot out of the tip and swept out like an ancient searchlight. It swept over Horace...who was itching to activate his Barriers...

"Stop!" Jana snapped at him. "Allow it to scan you...no telling what it might do when it can't..."

Horace gritted his teeth as the beam shifted up and down his form.

"It's the same as the one the Microdrone encountered; you can relax a bit, Horace..." Matty reassured.

The beam was seemingly satisfied and moved on to Anona next, again playing up and down her form. Emily, Julius, Jana and Dante also went under the scrutiny of the Asgard scanning beam, it was rather quick about its work...and it seemed to speed up with each scan...Matty came under scrutiny next and the beam again did its work, seemingly just scanning.

The notion that it was just a scan was quickly dispelled when it finally reached Bratac. Jana felt like kicking herself when she realized how it would look when the computer controlling the beam would identify him as Jaffa. The beam started at his head and went down, but the instant it reached his symbiote pouch it flared an angry red...

"Barriers!" Jana snapped to her team and rushed towards Bratac, who was by now visibly in pain and the beam hissed angrily with potent energy that was clearly not just to scan anyone coming through the Gate. Her own plan was simply to put herself in front of the Jaffa and disrupt the beam with her own Barrier...but the instant she managed to intersperse herself...there was a white flash of light...

...darkness...

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Horace and the rest of ES1 stood in mute shock for a brief moment at the empty space where Bratac and Jana had been, and looked up at the now dormant edifice, then, "Matty?"

"They're not dead," the SB's field flared with worry, "that was a highly sophisticated Displacement beam. It went through her Barriers like they weren't even there."

"They've been moved," Emily had her eyes closed and was pinging Jana through the Commonality's subquantum link..."but they're both unconscious."

"How come Bratac's skinsuit didn't raise _his_ Barriers?" Julius asked with a scowl.

"The beam, it targeted Bratac's symbiote with so much energy it bled over and overwhelmed the AI's neural net," Matty reported. "And you saw Bratac himself was in no condition to switch it on, not that it would've helped."

"Finding the Asgard has become secondary, we must find Jana and Bratac," Horace looked at the rest of the team. "We just have to wait for them both wake up, and then Jana's active consciousness will allow us to locate her through the Link."

"You're the Second in Charge of the team," agreed Julius.

"I have a general direction for us to begin our search," Matty announced. "I was able to roughly calculate the intended direction of the Asgard Displacement beam...we should head into the mountains."

Horace nodded and ES1 fell into a standard wedge formation to begin their journey. They had barely gotten to the edge of the clearing when Matty warned them of a rapidly approaching human lifesign on horseback.

"Cloak."

ES1 vanished into nothingness and merged with the treeline. Contact with the humans under Asgard protection was not something they could afford at present. They had no idea of what the Asgard considered to be 'acceptable levels of contact' with their protectorates. Horace felt that until it was known...that it would be best to avoid contact, and not even leave any footprints.

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Jana abruptly awoke and sat up fluidly, wincing at the rough, uneven...cold cave floor that she was awkwardly sprawled upon. Taking a look around it seemed she was in a large chamber that had a single passage tunnel that radiated away from it. The place was lit with small flame torches that seemed to be almost blended into the rough walls at regular intervals. The atmosphere was rather oppressive and distinctly eerie as the dripping of water echoed through the chamber and its tunnels. Luckily she was not alone; Bratac was also unconscious not a few feet away from her.

She got to her knees and leaned over, prodding him carefully. "Bratac." The Jaffa quickly awoke and in a trice was on his knees as well, his posture alert but he visibly winced afterward. "Something wrong?"

"The beam," Bratac winced again, holding his hand reflexively over his abdomen, his skinsuit rippled from within, "it induced great pain to the Goa'uld I carry. It is rather agitated."

"I must apologize Bratac," Jana got to her feet wearily; "I did not think the Asgard would have such mindless automated defences. I thought we would easily be able to explain your defection to them."

"No apology is necessary," Bratac smiled and stood as well.

'_Jana?! You're awake. Finally! Thank Deus_,' Horace's thoughts came over the Link.

'_Ah, you're on way already, good_,' she thought back. She concentrated on the data flow, finding their relative positioning. '_You should make it here in less than a day's fast walk. I have a feeling we're going to need help from the outside to get out of this.'_

'_Understood.'_

Jana willed a Scanner gauntlet to appear over her left arm, which did so successfully. She let out an inward sigh of relief; she wouldn't have to put it past a Race as seemingly advanced as the Asgard to have somehow disabled her technology whilst in mid-Displacement. A flat hologram blossomed over her arm...

"We're in an extensive maze that's been cut out of the interior of this mountain," her thoughts manipulated the hologram to zoom out, "this is gonna take a while. I'm also detecting a dampening field permeating the maze."

"What does this field achieve?" Bratac wondered.

"It dampens a specific energy frequency...hmm...oh very clever, it prevents any form of naquadah from delivering any energy at a molecular level."

"Such a field would render any Goa'uld technology obsolete and useless."

"Which is very lucky for us as Terran technology makes no use of Naquadah," Jana said with a grin. "Let's see if we can't find a way out so long."

They had barely taken a step when a sudden blue light emerged from a hidden recess on the cave ceiling a few feet away. Seemingly stepping into this light a tall man emerged from the darkness; with long brown hair and beard, black jerkin, helmet, cloak and silver arm guards all in a very 'Viking' style. The 'Viking' carried a large golden hammer as his weapon. Jana looked at her Scanner, focusing it on the man and relaxed somewhat.

"_It's a hologram, might be interactive_," she thought towards Bratac. "Hello?" she tried.

The Viking hologram shook his head and began to speak in a deep, thronging voice in Goa'uld, "**I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet. The High Council of the Asgard has designated Cimmeria a safe world for developing sentient species by unanimous decree, Era 40.73.29. The Goa'uld System Lords were so informed.**"

"Excuse me, surely you have sensors in this place that can tell I'm not a Goa'uld," Jana stated with irritation, "Bratac here carries one inside him, be he has no choice about that. He has defected to the Terran Commonality...

But Thor ignored her and continued, "**You were warned not to come here. Under pain of death.**"

"**I am Jana Freeman from **Terra," she interjected, but in Goa'uld just in case they didn't understand Latin or didn't have proper translation technology, "**you most certainly spent some time there in the past.**"

"**For crimes against the living host and all those you have murdered and enslaved, the sentence is death,"** Thor pronounced gravely.

"Guess it's not interactive then, just a message," Jana surmised to Bratac.

"**This is your prison. Your technology will not function. There are no luxuries, no worshippers, no slaves to do your bidding, only basic sustenance and time. When you tire of this existence, go to the Hall of Mjolnir and face the Hammer,**" the hologram held out the golden hammer aggressively, "**there is no escape. Only the host can leave this place. Alive**."

The hologram vanished.

"So clearly a Goa'uld trap."

"Therefore, if I attempt to leave this place with you, the Goa'uld I carry will be destroyed."

Jana thought a moment, merging herself with the Commonality and after a minute asked, "How long can you go without it?" she asked consideringly.

"A Jaffa can survive two days, but is immediately weakened the moment the Prim'ta is removed, the strongest of us can keep walking for eight hours, but then we would be flat on our backs."

"That should be long enough," Jana mused. "We have not mentioned it to you, Bratac, but we have investigated the possibility of removing the symbiote within you, and replacing it with an artificial nanite based immune system."

"Truly?" Bratac blinked in astonishment. "Would it work?"

"Our medical researchers believe so."

"Such a thing would mean true personal freedom from the Goa'uld," Bratac said with a hint of awe in his tone, as if he couldn't believe it to be truly possible.

"Come then, Bratac, and let us cast off the chains."

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Exploring what was properly termed a 'Labyrinth' straight out of ancient myth, but except designed for a Goa'uld was quite an experience. Jana could just imagine how an arrogant, egotistical snake would feel, stripped of all his 'magical' technology and left to wander here for a very, very long time. As a Goa'uld it would also have no access to a Sarcophagus and it would eventually die of old age, but it would be rare for any to survive that long without going insane and losing the will to live.

But Jana soon found that another fly was apparently caught in this Asgard web. An hour into their navigation of the Labyrinth, they detected an unknown alien lifesign.

"How can it be unknown?" Bratac queried, using his own Scanner to scrutinize the lifesign. "It's supposed to be calibrated for a blended Goa'uld. The Hammer of Thor would not snatch an unknown species. The Asgard wouldn't want to anger a new species out of hand."

"True, yet for some reason, this being was taken..."

"How far away is it?"

"Less than a stadia," Jana bit her lip in consideration of what to do. "Let's keep going for the Hall of Mjolnir, much as I'd like to think that this being got caught by accident...I doubt it."

Their first indication of the nature of this being came when they happened upon a chamber in the Labyrinth with a stale pool of accumulated water that was coming through a crack in the roof. They found several bones between large rocks at the edge of the pool. Bratac picked up one and examined it thoughtfully, whilst Jana found what had to be the small cartilage and sinuous bones of a decomposed Goa'uld.

"These Goa'uld died with their human hosts. The marks on these bones—they are from a cutting instrument. But not metal." Bratac declared after a few moments' scrutiny.

Jana gauged the distance between the marks on the bone and dropped the dead Goa'uld bones. "Teeth then?"

"Yes, large and powerful ones. These bodies did not die of natural causes. They were killed, and then eaten. Where is our 'friend'?"

Jana glanced at her Scanner, "Closer, but not close enough to know of us yet, unless it has a superior sense of smell."

"We should not discount that," Bratac stated.

The observation turned out to be quite accurate though, as in the next hour of their journey the unknown lifesign began to follow and trace their route through the Labyrinth with surprising accuracy. They eventually paused in a large room, high ceilinged with lighted lamps hanging from chains. On several walls there are carvings of runes in a circle around pictures.

"Hmmm, Norse runes, if we weren't being stalked I would take the time to translate these," Jana murmured, instead just letting her Scanner make a visual recording. "So what do you suggest? Do we confront our stalker? If he, she or it had been friendly I'm sure they would've made contact with us by now."

"Not knowing whether its friend or foe _is_ getting tiresome," Bratac acknowledged.

"Then let us Cloak and retrace," Jana ordered. They both vanished into invisibility, Bratac using his Skinsuit, whilst Jana's Defensive Gauntlet did the same. They headed back out of the rune room, walking a minute or so to retrace their steps, squeezed themselves against the rock wall of the passage and waited.

It wasn't ten minutes later that they both saw a very tall and powerful figure carefully flitting through the shadows. Jana willed her eyesight to adjust to penetrate the darkness and was shocked enough to stiffen and gasp. Even Bratac was startled and wide eyed at the being. It was almost one point seven passus tall, walked on two legs, and had two arms, but that was where it's similarity to any humanoid form ended. It was clearly reptilian, with leathery hard patterned skin mostly a dull green-yellow in colour, and its cloths were tattered in the extreme. Its face was like something out of an ancient nightmare...high, prominent cheekbones, with a pattern of horns framing it, and the vertical slit eyes of a cat. It's clawed three fingered hands flexed almost eagerly as it passed, and a low barely audible rumble of anticipation was emitted from its throat.

Jana could see a light of astonished and almost fearful recognition in Bratac's eyes.

'_Bratac, what in Deus' Creation was that?!_'

The Jaffa couldn't take his eyes off the being as it continued into the distance, but eventually he mentally replied in the Team Link, _'It's a First One. An Unas. I thought it but a mere myth. In legend they evolved from the same primordial waters as the Goa'uld, they were the First Hosts of the Goa'uld and initially carried the parasites to the Stars via the Stargate."_

"_If that was the First Host, how come it's still alive? Ra and the others found and switched hosts with Humanity precisely because the Goa'uld were apparently dying in the Unas_."

"_I do not know, perhaps this one was merely lucky enough to escape that fate."_

"_How long could it have been trapped in here?"_

"_Perhaps a thousand years. It is said that Unas can utilize long periods of hibernation to survive, especially with a Goa'uld within."_

"_That just leaves the question what do we do to it? Leave it here so it can 'snack' on the next Goa'uld to stupidly get caught in this trap and just leave, or__...?"_

"_To do battle with such a creature of legend would be glorious, however, I doubt I could win in a fair battle, the Unas' power and savagery is great, and would be more so with a Goa'uld_," Bratac thought with grimness colouring his mind.

"_There are worse things than mere death, killing it would be a release from this torment...it will die eventually, but with the death of hunger...as long as no more Goa'uld get trapped in this web._"

"_Then let us remain concealed and leave it to its fate."_

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With the Unas completely bewildered after losing track of them, Jana and Bratac still under Cloak finally entered the room their scans indicated would be the exit of the Labyrinth, and it also properly fit the bill for being the Hall of Mjolnir. It was a large open room, lit by candles in bowls hanging from the ceiling (the candles were fake of course; the illuminating flames were artificially generated by a power source her scans indicated made use of an advanced Neutrino based reactor buried deep in the mountain). There were carvings around the walls...of snakes and Goa'uld writings...it was made by those who had been trapped here over the eons. She made sure to make visual recordings for later analysis.

At the other end of the hall, was a doorway shaped in a form of a Hammer. Jana paused just before the threshold and glanced at her scanner, after passing the Gauntlet over the doorway.

"The technology here has similar components to the Hammer near the Stargate."

"Then the time has come," Bratac said stoically.

"_Horace, are you ready?"_

"_We're just outside the cave entrance, an Icodron is standing by to Displace Bratac the instant he leaves the cave._"

Bratac took a deep breath and his Skinsuit responded to his will as it parted and folded back partially from his abdomen, exposing the x shaped pouch scar of a Jaffa that housed the Goa'uld larva. Jana winced at the slightly sickening sight as the Jaffa, his eyes alight with determination reached into the pouch, his hand fiddling as he tried to get a proper grip on the squirming larvae. His jaw flexed and with little fanfare simply jerked his hand out.

In his grip was a squealing slimy dark grey Goa'uld. Jana had seen computer enhanced holograms of both Bratac's and the Ra symbiote, it did little to prepare one for the truly ugly reality of the parasite; the sharp four pronged mandible mouth, the tiny crystalline eyes on either side. It was hard to imagine that something so small could be the cause of so much death and suffering across an entire Galaxy.

Bratac dropped the larvae to the ground and stepped on it powerfully, resulting in a wet squishing sound and purple blood exploded from underneath his boot.

"I will die free," Bratac gasped, his legs becoming wobbly. Jana rushed over to support him and carefully helped him across the threshold of the Hammer doorway...

...nothing.

No energy beam appeared.

In fact, once they were in the chamber beyond the Hammer, a massive stone doorway swung open and they saw the fading daylight at end of another tunnel.

"Let's get you back to Terra," Jana grinned and they walked into the fresh outside air. The rest of ES1 was there and waiting, grinning in relief at the sight of them both.

'_This is Icod__ron Gamma 12, please stand clear."_

She made sure that Bratac could at least stand on his feet and took a few steps away. "See you soon, Bratac."

The Jaffa nodded with a light of relief, dignity and pride in his eyes she had never seen before...then he was encased in a sphere of white energy that abruptly contracted and vanished, leaving behind only empty air. She looked up to where the invisible and silent Icodron hovered above them...and it abruptly shot off into distance towards the Stargate.

"Well, we still have to find the Asgard, any ideas anyone?" Jana queried as she regarded her still 'invisible' team mates.

"I took the liberty of linking up with the Icodron's sensors while it was here, and had them perform a more extensive scan than I alone am capable of," Matty reported. "I looked for technology similar to the Hammer edifice near the Stargate and found twenty similar but smaller devices scattered about all four continents of this planet."

"More Goa'uld traps?" Julius queried.

"I doubt that," Anona shook her head. "The locations of these smaller Hammers make for poor traps; they're all in the least populated areas of Cimmeria. And it's a poor defence against the Goa'uld if they decide to come in ships...they could just blast the Hammers away from orbit."

"We don't know that the Asgard have Cloaked orbital defense satellites up there that we can't detect," Horace pointed out. "Their technology is thus far more advanced than our own."

"At least with regards to Displacement technology, yes," Jana agreed thoughtfully. "All right, we'll go to the closest of these devices and see what we can make of it."

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It was well over five hours after nightfall that ES1 reached one of the smaller Hammer devices. It had the same neo-Norse style and was just over three gradus in height, and also had another Displacement array jewel mounted in it. Horace stepped forward and hovered his Scanner near it. "Hmmm, I believe this is just a Displacement array, it's lacking quite a few components in comparison to its big brother at the Stargate."

"Could it be part of a point to point Displacement network?" Emily wondered.

"I believe it can serve as that, but it is not its main purpose," Jana stepped forward and looked at the runic writing inscribed on it. "My ability with ancient Norse has never been that great, but this is a warning...it's saying...to not touch the Hammer..._unless_..._proceed_...something...and then _knowledge_...oh, and at the bottom it says _Hall of Thor's...strength, _no_, power. _This is a message to the people of Cimmeria..." She tapped a finger thoughtfully against her chin. "We touch it and then it takes us to another area the Asgard set up."

"Hopefully not a Labyrinth," Dante said wryly.

"No," Jana shook her head. "I believe this is a First Contact setup...left behind by the Asgard for when the Cimmerians reach a certain level of development."

"That's disappointing," Julius sighed, "That could mean there are no Asgard on this planet."

"All right, myself, Matty, Horace and Emily will touch the Hammer," Jana ordered, "Julius, Dante and Anona, you three will go on an Observation mission of the local human population, stay Cloaked at all times until we get the Asgard's permission to interact."

ES1 nodded in understanding, that latter half of the team swiftly vanishing into the night, whilst Jana and her companions dropped their Cloaks. Not wanting to risk being seen for long, Jana swiftly placed a hand on Matty's smooth surface through his holoskin, before the three Terrans reached out to touch the Hammer.

The reaction from it was swift. A bright beam of white energy snapped on and swirled over all four of them...Jana felt herself being smoothly dematerialized...it was rather more comfortable than their own Displacement...and abruptly she felt herself materialized again and standing on a smooth, cold distinctly artificial surface...there was not a single source of light in the...large rectangular smooth grey walled room they had appeared in.

"That's the most pleasant Displacement I've ever felt," Horace grinned, looking impressed.

Light emerged from the far side of the room, backlighting another Hammer edifice that leant against the wall. More light shot down from the ceiling in front of it and once again the burly Viking visage of Thor stepped into it.

"_I am Thor,"_ it spoke in Norse, "_you (unknown) brave to come (unknown) me. However, only the worthy may (unknown) Thor's might_." The hologram vanished.

"Translator's going to need more to work from, but it was understandable...now we'll probably have to prove it in some way," Matty muttered. The room abruptly began to shake in a massive earthquake. "Oh I had to open my mouth!" Those on two legs struggled to remain upright, whilst Matty hovered higher and reached out with graviton beams that swiftly pulled his teammates from the rapidly crumbling floor. Just as quickly the earthquake stopped.

All that remained of the floor was an island where the team had been standing, and a thin beam barely five digitus wide that stretched out across a newly created chasm in the room that led deep down into a never-ending abyss. The beam ended in another island around which the Hammer was.

"Oh, this is definitely a test," Jana stated as Matty lowered the team to stand on their own feet again.

"Do we play along?" Emily asked with smile. "Matty can hover us over to the other side easily."

"This test was meant for the Cimmerians, if we 'cheat' as it were, I doubt we'll get to the next stage."

"Stage?" Horace frowned.

"Yes," nodded Jana. "Do you think this will be the only test? All this does is testing our willingness to take risks and our sense of balance. If I wanted to test a Race's readiness for First Contact I would set up much more than just this."

"It's a little too hands off for my taste, we actively look after and observe our Protectorate races, we'll know when they're ready," Emily pointed out.

"We have no way to judge the Asgard yet on their policies, we don't know their circumstances," Jana sighed. "We play along."

Matty promptly flew ahead over the abyss, and reached the other island without fanfare, though his holofields radiated smugness. "Come along."

Jana glared at the SB and carefully centred her focus on the other end and walked forward steadily over the beam with perfect balance, not pausing or stopping at all. Emily crossed in the same way after Horace gestured for her to proceed ahead of him. When his time came the expected twist to the test came...halfway across another earthquake rocked the room.

Horace swiftly dropped to the beam in a push-up position, lowering his centre of gravity and gripped the beam so hard that Jana could see dents being pushed in it.

The earthquake stopped.

"That was fun," Horace quipped, he moved to stand again, but yet another earthquake rocked the room, forcing him back into his prone position. "Merda! Will you let me across already?" He cursed to the room itself.

"Hmmm," Jana frowned. "Perhaps...they're testing..." She turned to Emily and Matty. "Remain here, no matter what." They nodded wearily looking uncertain about what she had in mind. She walked back onto the beam and stopped just before Horace. "Give me your hand."

'_I hope you're right about this, Jana_,' he thought.

He wearily put his feet under him again, reached out his hand, but before Jana could clasp hands with him, the room shook yet again, the most powerful jolt yet...it might as well have turned upside down with the power of the earthquake. Jana managed to grasp Horace hand in monkey grip but it was too late...both fell into the abyss...

The earthquake ended, the room was abruptly rebuilt as if it had never fallen apart and both Jana and Horace were lying side by side on the floor again. They both got to their feet and stared at their teammates.

"Looks like you were right Jana," Matty's holofields reflected his satisfaction.

The hologram light reappeared and Thor the Viking spoke again, _"__You have shown true selflessness and bravery. (Unknown ) to sacrifice oneself to save another is an (unknown) trait. I salute you. Now you must (unknown) wisdom to courage. Solve the riddle of the runes, and I will show you my true might."_

"_Although we know nothing much about the Asgard, I doubt a Race that goes to these lengths to protect the humans on this planet would kill them for simply attempting First Contact._"

"_So now what?"_ Emily thought.

Their answer came from the Hammer, when another white Displacement beam swept over them.

They appeared now in another large room, octagonal in shape, in the centre burned a fire in a kettle like pit. Each wall had large groups of large, prominent writings carved into them and to one side again was another Hammer with another Hologram podium.

"_We solve the riddle of the runes_," Jana shrugged.

Despite being octagonal, only three of the walls held and form of marking. One had pictographs, showing a crude representation of a battle scene. The next had five large Norse runes on it. And the last had of all things simple geometric shapes – a circle, square, triangle and rectangle.

"You're our archaeologist Jana, what do you make of it?" Horace asked staring at the pictograph with interest.

"Well," she sighed, "I can tell you now those pictographs are just there to confuse us. They have nothing to do with the riddle in this context." Jana stood in front of the Norse runes with a frustrated look on her face. "Merda, Matty scan these runes and run them through a translation matrix."

Matty bobbed up and down in acknowledgement. "Translating now. Uh, I have multiple results."

"I was afraid of that," Jana sighed. "Runes were originally ideographic, but later they become letters and then most recently numbers. So which does Thor wants us to use?"

"He wants to test if the Cimmerians are advanced enough for Contact," Horace reasoned, "so I'd say the numbers are what he's after...to see if they've developed mathematics..."

"In that case, the runes translates to three, fourteen, fifteen and nine," Matty replied.

Horace, the engineer that he was grinned, "All too easy, three point one four one five nine."

"Pi," all of them chorused as one.

He walked over to the wall with geometric shapes, examining the circle very closely. "Ah, the circle's surface is porous like sand." He took a finger and drew a radius. The sand was abruptly sucked into the circle itself, leaving a round red stone with the gold symbol of a Hammer on it. "Now what?"

"Push it, it's like an ancient activation button," Matty declared.

Horace did so.

Abruptly the hologram projector in front of the Hammer came to life. The big burly Thor Viking stood there again, but then the image wavered and fell like sand to the floor before turning into another shape.

"By Deus!" exclaimed Jana in astonishment, and her team mirrored her expression.

The alien form that now stood there was barely a passus in height, with grey skin and thin, spindly arms and legs, huge almond sized head and large black eyes and wearing no adornment or cloths. The alien's small mouth spoke with an odd resonance...

"I am the actual one…whom you know as Thor."

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'_Matty is this hologram interactive?_' she thought.

'_Yes, I'm detecting a subspace transmission._'

'_We're talking to an actual Callisto Grey_,' Emily thought in astonishment. _"The last sighting was more than a millennia ago..."_

"Greetings Thor," Jana stepped forward and bowed her head slightly. "Can you understand our language fully?"

Thor turned to regard them. "Fascinating. Yes, my computer has locked onto your language and compensated for linguistic drift. You come from the world known as Terra in your language? The true homeworld of Humanity?"

"Yes, we recently discovered the Stargate our ancestors buried, and discovered the truth of what the Goa'uld did and are doing at present. We are mainly explorers, but unfortunately that must take a sideline now to free our younger cousins from Goa'uld domination and slavery."

"It's surprising that your civilization has survived," Thor eventually said after what seemed like a thoughtful silence. "Our last reported observation of Terra, was when your three dominant Stellar Imperial factions were about to engage in hostilities. With your ideology and the weapons in your employ at the time, the High Council felt it unwise to initiate contact with you, despite your level of development."

"We endured and learned from it, all Terrans became one with each other, we formed into a merging of minds, the Commonality....that endures to this day," Jana explained.

"So, as I speak to you, I am actually speaking to every Terran in existence..." Thor's head titled back rapidly and his eyes blinked.

"To those paying attention at least, yes," nodded Jana with a grin. "We maintain our individuality, and can isolate ourselves if we wish privacy."

"Fascinating," Thor murmured again.

"I am Jana Freeman, leader of Exploration and Survey Team One or ES1, this is Emily Adaway, Horace Aurelius, and Matthew Antonius. The Terran Commonality greets you in peace, and hopes that you will consent to a diplomatic, trade and eventually a mutual defence relationship between our peoples."

"On behalf of the Asgard High Council, I can say that it would be a pleasant surprise to welcome you as allies amongst us. The Council will have the final say, but I suspect they will not have much objection, especially given your apparent level of development as a civilization."

"We can exchange Cultural databases when we finally meet in person, so we can see where we stand and how we can possibly help each other."

"That will be acceptable," nodded Thor. "Forgive me if I offend, but you introduced...him as a person...yet what I see before me is an artificial construct."

"Well he is a person," Jana grinned at Matty, whose holoskin flared an indignant red. "He lost his biological body in an accident, and we managed to save his consciousness. Matty resides in this synthetic shell instead of a human bioform because it allows him access to abilities, tools and technology a normal Terran wouldn't ordinarily have on their person. It's a sacrifice he and others like him makes for the benefit of the Commonality as a whole."

"I can already see we will have much to talk about," Thor droned. "I am currently in my quarters on board the Asgard ship _Beliskner;_ in the Galaxy you call Ida. I can be in orbit of Cimmeria in ten hours."

"I look forward to meeting you in person then," nodded Jana. "I must also mention that we have prevented ourselves from being seen by the Cimmerians, since we do not know what your policy is regarding interaction with them."

"I thank you for your circumspection," Thor tilted his head. "Given your technology, clothless appearance, and abilities they would perhaps mistake you for gods. To interact openly would be...awkward..."

"...we understand full well, and will continue to remain hidden from them then in the future."

"I will have the Hammer in this room transport you back to the surface," Thor tilted his head again, a flash of light appeared on the floor and a rounded crystal jewel with Norse runes appeared next to Jana's feet, which she picked up interestedly. "This will allow me to contact you directly."

"See you in ten hours then," Jana bowed and they were all engulfed in white energy and vanished from the room.

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ES1 reunited the next morning just beyond the clearing that surrounded the Stargate.

"The Ida Galaxy is roughly two point six million light years distant from Terra," Horace shook his head incredulously. "If the Asgard can traverse that in ten hours...their FTL makes ours look like we're practically standing still. Thor's ship will need to travel in excess of seventy two light years per second to make it here in ten hours. That's a near ludicrous velocity. Not even Goa'uld Hyperspace FTL comes close to that."

"I wonder if the Asgard also uses Hyperspace or some other form of FTL-technique," Julius mused.

"We'll just have to ask them ourselves when the time comes," Jana shrugged. "I'm more excited to actually meet the Race behind the Callisto Grey mythos. If they had us under surveillance during the pre-Great War period I would love to go over their observations of us during that time." The Asgard communicator in her hand abruptly lit up with an inner light. "Right on time."

"Jana Freeman," droned Thor's voice. "I'm in orbit of Cimmeria. I detect seven of you, do you all wish to be displaced aboard?"

"Yes, ES1 nominally numbers eight, but one of us had to return to Terra."

"Understood, stand by."

Jana took a last look at Cimmeria before the world turned into a blur of white and the smooth sensation of Asgard displacement took hold. Barely a moment later her vision returned to normal and the seven of them stood on a large obsidian deck, facing a huge open viewport looking out over the blue, green and cloudy white planet surrounded by the black void. They turned from the hypnotic view to regard what had to be either a Bridge or a large Observation deck; it had two mezzanine levels that looked out over the deck they were standing on. On each level here and there were what looked like comfortable seats, with thick rounded sides and holograph displays hovering in front...seated on each was an Asgard who looked down at them with their big black eyes and they could hear them speaking in an odd resonant language. Jana could hear tones and sounds well outside of the normal human spectrum being spoken between these Asgard, but their Translation matrix didn't have a clue.

There was a sudden musical thrum through the air, a point of white light appeared a passus in front of the team, which seemed to building in size, until a throne-like chair seemed to unfold into existence and normalize. Yet another Asgard was seated in this more ornate chair, which Jana guessed was clearly just as technological as the others on the 'Bridge'.

"Welcome to the _Beliskner,_" said Thor's familiar voice. Jana bowed, taking in the fact that Thor seemed to be virtually identical to almost every other Asgard in the room.

"It's a pleasure to be here, Supreme Commander."

"I have been in contact with the Asgard High Council, and they have authorized me to undertake an exploratory mission to your homeworld."

"Very well, I trust you still know where that is?"

Thor tilted his head, "yes. Are there any preferences for where in the Terran System we should exit Hyperspace?"

"Just beyond the orbit of the fourth planet, as long as we're on board the System Defences will not activate, from there you can move into standard orbit at sublight speeds."

A change in the ambient light showed that the _Beliskner_ was moving, no longer was its giant forward viewport pointed at the planet. ES1 turned around to watch as stars began to appear as the ship rapidly sped away from Cimmeria. Then in the near distance a dark purple cloud of energy suddenly opened up against the backdrop of space as the ship tunnelled into subspace...then the could abruptly swallowed them whole in a blur of distorted starlight, before the view was dominated by an infinite, swirling purple tunnel of subspace passing the ship.

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_A/N: Hope you enjoyed. I know it's nitpick; but I've always been irritated by the way Language was treated in the SGverse. How does a culture like the people in the (_P3X-797) _Land of Light (and a whole galaxy full of others), separated for thousands of years from Earth,...speak modern English that SG1 can understand? Anyone have any theories? _


End file.
